the stir of the coming strife,--Lord Hastings escaped
from the bustle, and repaired to the house of Katherine. With
what motive, with what intentions, was not known clearly to
himself,--perhaps, for there was bitterness in his very love for
Katherine, to enjoy the retaliation due to his own wounded pride, and
say to the idol of his youth, as he had said to Gloucester, "Time is,
time was;" perhaps with some remembrance of the faith due to Sibyll,
wakened up the more now that Katherine seemed actually to escape from
the ideal image into the real woman,--to be easily wooed and won. But,
certainly, Sibyll's cause was not wholly lost, though greatly shaken and
endangered, when Lord Hastings alighted at Lady Bonville's gate; but his
face gradually grew paler, his mien less assured, as he drew nearer and
nearer to the apartment and the presence of the widowed Katherine.

She was seated alone, and in the same room in which he had last
seen her. Her deep mourning only served, by contrasting the pale and
exquisite clearness of her complexion, to enhance her beauty. Hastings
bowed low, and seated himself by her side in silence.

The Lady of Bonville eyed him for some moments with an unutterable
expression of melancholy and tenderness. All her pride seemed to have
gone; the very character of her face was changed: grave severity had
become soft timidity, and stately self-control was broken into the
unmistaken struggle of hope and fear.

"Hastings--William!" she said, in a gentle and low whisper, and at the
sound of that last name from those lips, the noble felt his veins thrill
and his heart throb. "If," she continued, "the step I have taken seems
to thee unwomanly and too bold, know, at least, what was my design and
my excuse. There was a time" (and Katherine blushed) "when, thou knowest
well, that, had this hand been mine to bestow, it would have been his
who claimed the half of this ring." And Katherine took from a small
crystal casket the well-remembered token.

"The broken ring foretold but the broken troth," said Hastings, averting
his face.

"Thy conscience rebukes thy words," replied Katherine, sadly; "I pledged
my faith, if thou couldst win my father's word. What maid, and that maid
a Nevile, could so forget duty and honour as to pledge thee more? We
were severed. Pass--oh, pass over that time! My father loved me dearly;
but when did pride and ambition ever deign to take heed of the wild
fancies of a girl's heart? Thre