heart that has once
nourished its germ and foreseen its fruits. But when Alban quitted that
part of his theme, all the rest seemed wearisome to his listener. They
had now wound their walk to the opposite side of the lake, and paused
near the thick beech-trees, hallowed and saddened by such secret
associations to the mournful owner.

"No, my dear Alban," said Darrell, "I cannot summon up sufficient youth
and freshness of spirit to re-enter the turbulent arena I have left. Ah!
look yonder where Lionel and Sophy move! Give me, I do not say Lionel's
years, but Lionel's wealth of hope, and I might still have a wish for
fame and a voice for England; but it is a subtle truth, that when a man
misses a home, a link between his country and himself is gone. Vulgar
ambition may exist--the selfish desire of power; they were never very
strong in me, and now less strong than the desire of rest; but that
beautiful, genial, glorious union of all the affections of social
citizen, which begins at the hearth and widens round the land, is not
for the hermit's cell."

Alban was about to give up the argument in irritable despair, when
happening to turn his eye towards the farther depth of the beech-grove,
he caught a glimpse--no matter what of; but quickening his step in the
direction to which his glance had wandered, he seated himself on
the gnarled roots of a tree that seemed the monarch of the wood,
widespreading as that under which Tityrus reclined of old; and there,
out of sight of the groups on the opposite banks of the lake--there, as
if he had sought the gloomiest and most secret spot for what he had
yet to say, he let fall, in the most distinct yet languid tones of his
thoroughbred, cultured enunciation: "I have a message to you from Lady
Montfort. Restless man, do come nearer, and stand still. I am tired to
death." Darrell approached, and, leaning against the trunk of the giant
tree, said, with folded arms and compressed lips:

"A message from Lady Montfort!"

"Yes. I should have told you, by-the-by, that it was she who, being
a woman, of course succeeded where I, being a man, despite incredible
pains and trouble, signally failed, discovered Arabella Fossett, alias
Crane, and obtained from her the documents which free your life forever
from a haunting and torturing fear. I urged her to accompany me hither,
and place the documents herself in your hand. She refused; you were not
worth so much trouble, my dear Guy. I requested her