if they had been in attendance upon a funeral, he handed
his sister through a gallery hung with old family pictures, at the end
of which was Clara's bedchamber. The moon, which at this moment looked
out through a huge volume of mustering clouds that had long been boding
storm, fell on the two last descendants of that ancient family, as they
glided hand in hand, more like the ghosts of the deceased than like
living persons, through the hall and amongst the portraits of their
forefathers. The same thoughts were in the breast of both, but neither
attempted to say, while they cast a flitting glance on the pallid and
decayed representations, "How little did these anticipate this
catastrophe of their house!" At the door of the bedroom Mowbray quitted
his sister's hand, and said, "Clara, you should to-night thank God, that
saved you from a great danger, and me from a deadly sin."

"I will," she answered--"I will." And, as if her terror had been anew
excited by this allusion to what had passed, she bid her brother hastily
good-night, and was no sooner within her apartment, than he heard her
turn the key in the lock, and draw two bolts besides.

"I understand you, Clara," muttered Mowbray between his teeth, as he
heard one bar drawn after another. "But if you could earth yourself
under Ben Nevis, you could not escape what fate has destined for
you.--Yes!" he said to himself, as he walked with slow and moody pace
through the moonlight gallery, uncertain whether to return to the
parlour, or to retire to his solitary chamber, when his attention was
roused by a noise in the court-yard.

The night was not indeed very far advanced, but it had been so long
since Shaws-Castle received a guest, that had Mowbray not heard the
rolling of wheels in the court-yard, he might have thought rather of
housebreakers than of visitors. But, as the sound of a carriage and
horses was distinctly heard, it instantly occurred to him, that the
guest must be Lord Etherington, come, even at this late hour, to speak
with him on the reports which were current to his sister's prejudice,
and perhaps to declare his addresses to her were at an end. Eager to
know the worst, and to bring matters to a decision, he re-entered the
apartment he had just left, where the lights were still burning, and,
calling loudly to Patrick, whom he heard in communing with the
postilion, commanded him to show the visitor to Miss Mowbray's parlour.
It was not the light step of the y