new, evidently placed
there recently; and as the creature thrust forward its head, as if for
the caress of a wonted hand, the lady read the inscription. The words
were in Italian, and may be construed thus: "Female, yet not faithless;
fostered, yet not ungrateful." As she read, her heart so swelled, and
her resolve so deserted her, that she turned as if she had received a
sentence of dismissal, and went back some hasty paces. The doe followed
her till she paused again, and then it went slowly down a narrow path to
the left, which led to the banks of the little lake.

The lady had now recovered herself. "It is a duty, and it must be done,"
she muttered, and letting clown the veil she had raised on entering the
demesne, she hurried on, not retracing her steps in the same path, but
taking that into which the doe had stricken, perhaps in the confused
mistake of a mind absorbed and absent-perhaps in revived recollection
of the localities, for the way thus to the house was shorter than by
the weed-grown carriage-road. The lake came in view, serene and glassy;
half-leafless woodlands reflected far upon its quiet waters; the doe
halted, lifted its head, and sniffed the air, and, somewhat quickening
its pace, vanished behind one of the hillocks clothed with brushwood,
that gave so primitive and forest-like a character to the old ground.
Advancing still, there now,--at her right hand, grew out of the
landscape the noble turrets of the unfinished pile; and, close at her
left, under a gnarled fantastic thorn-tree, the still lake at his feet
reflecting his stiller shadow, reclined Guy Darrell, the doe nestled at
his side.

So unexpected this sight--he, whom she came to seek yet feared to see,
so close upon her way--the lady uttered a faint but sharp cry, and
Darrell sprang to his feet. She stood before him, veiled, mantled,
bending as a suppliant.

"Avaunt!" he faltered wildly. "Is this a spirit my own black solitude
conjures up--or is it a delusion, a dream? It is I--I!--the Caroline
dear to you once, if detested now! Forgive me! Not for myself I come."
She flung back her veil-her eyes pleadingly sought his.

"So," said Darrell, gathering his arms round his breast in the gesture
peculiar to him when seeking either to calm a more turbulent movement,
or to confirm a sterner resolution of his heart--"so! Caroline,
Marchioness of Montfort, we are then fated to meet face to face at last!
I understand--Lionel Haughton sent, or showe