e
canopy of the arbour, and seemed to await the communication he had
promised.

"Report says," said the clergyman, speaking in an eager and hurried
manner, yet with a low voice, and like one desirous of being heard by
her whom he addressed, and by no one else,--"Report says that you are
about to be married."

"And is report kind enough to say to whom?" answered the lady, with a
tone of indifference which seemed to astound her interrogator.

"Young lady," he answered, with a solemn voice, "had this levity been
sworn to me, I could never have believed it! Have you forgot the
circumstances in which you stand?--Have you forgotten that my promise of
secrecy, sinful perhaps even in that degree, was but a conditional
promise?--or did you think that a being so sequestered as I am was
already dead to the world, even while he was walking upon its
surface?--Know, young lady, that I am indeed dead to the pleasures and
the ordinary business of life, but I am even therefore the more alive to
its duties."

"Upon my honour, sir, unless you are pleased to be more explicit, it is
impossible for me either to answer or understand you," said the lady;
"you speak too seriously for a masquerade pleasantry, and yet not
clearly enough to make your earnest comprehensible."

"Is this sullenness, Miss Mowbray?" said the clergyman, with increased
animation; "Is it levity?--Or is it alienation of mind?--Even after a
fever of the brain, we retain a recollection of the causes of our
illness.--Come, you must and do understand me, when I say, that I will
not consent to your committing a great crime to attain temporal wealth
and rank, no, not to make you an empress. My path is a clear one; and
should I hear a whisper breathed of your alliance with this Earl, or
whatever he may be, rely upon it, that I will withdraw the veil, and
make your brother, your bridegroom, and the whole world, acquainted with
the situation in which you stand, and the impossibility of your forming
the alliance which you propose to yourself, I am compelled to say,
against the laws of God and man."

"But, sir--sir," answered the lady, rather eagerly than anxiously, "you
have not yet told me what business you have with my marriage, or what
arguments you can bring against it."

"Madam," replied Mr. Cargill, "in your present state of mind, and in
such a scene as this, I cannot enter upon a topic for which the season
is unfit, and you, I am sorry to say, are totally unprepared.