I understand you not. If a course
of action is good, it needs no vindication from the actor's motives--if
bad, it can derive none."

"You cannot blind me with your sophistry, Julian," replied Alice
Bridgenorth, "any more than you can overpower me with your passion. Had
the patriarch destined his son to death upon any less ground than faith
and humble obedience to a divine commandment, he had meditated a murder
and not a sacrifice. In our late bloody and lamentable wars, how many
drew swords on either side, from the purest and most honourable motives?
How many from the culpable suggestions of ambition, self-seeking, and
love of plunder? Yet while they marched in the same ranks, and spurred
their horses at the same trumpet-sound, the memory of the former is
dear to us as patriots or loyalists--that of those who acted on mean or
unworthy promptings, is either execrated or forgotten. Once more, I warn
you, avoid my father--leave this island, which will be soon agitated
by strange incidents--while you stay, be on your guard--distrust
everything--be jealous of every one, even of those to whom it may
seem almost impossible, from circumstances, to attach a shadow of
suspicion--trust not the very stones of the most secret apartment in
Holm-Peel, for that which hath wings shall carry the matter."

Here Alice broke off suddenly, and with a faint shriek; for, stepping
from behind the stunted copse which had concealed him, her father stood
unexpectedly before them.

The reader cannot have forgotten that this was the second time in
which the stolen interviews of the lovers had been interrupted by the
unexpected apparition of Major Bridgenorth. On this second occasion
his countenance exhibited anger mixed with solemnity, like that of the
spirit to a ghost-seer, whom he upbraids with having neglected a charge
imposed at their first meeting. Even his anger, however, produced no
more violent emotion than a cold sternness of manner in his speech and
action. "I thank you, Alice," he said to his daughter, "for the pains
you have taken to traverse my designs towards this young man, and
towards yourself. I thank you for the hints you have thrown out before
my appearance, the suddenness of which alone has prevented you from
carrying your confidence to a pitch which would have placed my life and
that of others at the discretion of a boy, who, when the cause of God
and his country is laid before him, has not leisure to think of them,
so much