ice to your motives in the protection
you have given to the poor girl whom Lionel would wed; I thank you
for that protection,--though I refuse consent to my kinsman's prayer.
Whatever her birth, I must be glad to know that she whom Lionel so loves
is safe from a wretch like Losely. More--one word more--wait--it is
hard for me to say it--be happy! I cannot pardon, but I can bless you.
Farewell for ever!" More overpoweringly crushed by his tenderness than
his wrath, before Caroline could recover the vehemence of her sobs,
he had ceased--he was gone--lost in the close gloom of a neighbouring
thicket, his hurried headlong path betrayed by the rustle of mournful
boughs swinging back with their withered leaves.

CHAPTER II.

RETROSPECT.

THERE IS A PLACE AT WHICH THREE ROADS MEET, SACRED TO THAT
MYSTERIOUS GODDESS CALLED DIANA ON EARTH, LUNA, OR THE MOON, IN
HEAVEN, OR HECATE IN THE INFERNAL REGIONS. AT THIS PLACE PAUSE THE
VIRGINS PERMITTED TO TAKE THEIR CHOICE OF THE THREE ROADS. FEW GIVE
THEIR PREFERENCE TO THAT WHICH IS VOWED TO THE GODDESS IN HER NAME
OF DIANA: THAT ROAD, COLD AND BARREN, IS CLOTHED BY NO ROSES AND
MYRTLES. ROSES AND MYRTLES VEIL THE ENTRANCE TO BOTH THE OTHERS,
AND IN BOTH THE OTHERS HYMEN HAS MUCH THE SAME GAY-LOOKING TEMPLES.
BUT WHICH OF THOSE TWO LEADS TO THE CELESTIAL LUNA, OR WHICH OF THEM
CONDUCTS TO THE INFERNAL HECATE, NOT ONE NYMPH IN FIFTY DIVINES. IF
THY HEART SHOULD MISGIVE THEE, O NYMPH!--IF, THOUGH CLOUD VEIL THE
PATH TO THE MOON, AND SUNSHINE GILD THAT TO PALE HECATETHINE
INSTINCT RECOILS FROM THE SUNSHINE, WHILE THOU DAREST NOT ADVENTURE
THE CLOUD--THOU HAST STILL A CHOICE LEFT--THOU HAST STILL THE SAFE
ROAD OF DIANA. HECATE, O NYMPH, IS THE GODDESS OF GHOSTS. IF THOU
TAKEST HER PATH, LOOK NOT BACK, FOR THE GHOSTS ARE BEHIND THEE...

When we slowly recover from the tumult and passion of some violent
distress, a peculiar stillness falls upon the Mind, and the atmosphere
around it becomes in that stillness appallingly clear. We knew not,
while wrestling with our woe, the extent of its ravages. As a land the
day after a flood, as a field the day after a battle, is the sight
of our own sorrow, when we no longer have to steer its raging, but to
endure the destruction it has made. Distinct before Caroline Montfort's
vision stretched the waste of her misery--the Past, the Present, the
Future, all seemed to blend in one single Desolation