me--leave me!" she cried. "I must not now. Poor wanderer! art
thou gone?" With an expression of the deepest bitterness and
disappointment, she continued, "Why, oh, why didst thou take back thy
pledge? Nay, it is here still; but--alas! 'tis broken. Broken!" and a
scream so wild and pitiful escaped her, it was like the last agony of
the spirit when riven from its shrine. Her hair wet with the drizzly
atmosphere hung about her face. She suddenly threw it aside, as if
listening.

"'Tis he! Again he comes. My--no, no; he _was_ my lover! I have none
now. I have a husband; but--he is unkind. Alas! why am I thus? I feel
it! O merciful Heaven! my brain leaps; but I am not--indeed I am not
mad!"

Saying this, she bounded down the cliff into the path she had left,
with surprising swiftness. Returning, she was met by her husband, with
two servants, who were in search. He chid her harshly--brutally. He
threatened--ay, he threatened restraint. She heard this; but he saw
not the deep and inflexible purpose she had formed. Horror at the
apprehension of confinement, which, in calmer intervals, she dreaded
worse than death, prompted her to use every artifice to aid her
escape. She was now calm and obedient, murmuring not at the temporary
attendance to which she was subjected. She sought not the cliff and
the deep chasm; but would sit for hours upon the shore, looking over
the calm sea, with a look as calm and as deceitful.

Vigilance became relaxed; apprehension was lulled; she was again left
to herself, and again she stole towards the cliff. Like to some guilty
thing, she crept onward, often looking back lest she should be
observed. Having attired herself with more than ordinary care, before
leaving her chamber she unlocked an ivory casket with great caution,
taking thence a ring, which she carefully disposed on her forefinger.
She looked with so intense a gaze upon this pledge--for it was the
pledge of Mortimer--that she seemed to be watching its capricious
glance, like the eye of destiny, as if her fate were revealed in its
beautiful and mystic light.

Sunset was near as she approached the cliff. She paused where the
chasm opened out its deep vista upon the waters. They were now
sparkling in the crimson flush from a sky more than usually brilliant.
Both sky and ocean were blent in one; the purple beam ran out so pure
along the waves, that every billow might now be seen, every path and
furrow of the deep.

Adeline climbed over