The young Spaniard again lost his self-possession; and with an almost convulsed countenance and waiving his hand for her not to follow him, he darted through a chasm into the craggs; and by their intervening projections instantly disappeared. Cornelia joined Alice and her cousin; then turned with them into the direct path to the Parsonage, that Louis might be released from his wet garments; and her uncle relieved from any alarm the arrival of the horse might have occasioned. As they walked homeward, she gave her cousin a brief account of the visit of the Marquis and his son; and he much surprised her, when he declared this to be the first intimation he had received of their arrival. Alice was not sparing of her invectives against Sir Anthony for his dishonourable concealment of her uncle's messenger; and then enquired how Louis had at last broken away from his detainers.
"That you shall hear by and by," said he, "but I don't know what Cornelia will say; for, indeed, I had a run for it!" Cornelia smiled; and he added in a graver tone; "but if Mr. Athelstone knew the Duke of Wharton was at Bamborough, what must he have thought of my apparent neglect of his summons? Of my shameless contempt of my promise."
"No circumstance could have made him believe that any neglect came from you," cried Alice, "but we never heard of that frightful Duke being there; and so my uncle thought nothing about your stay, only as he regretted your losing so much of the society of these noble Spaniards." On the first intimation of their being Spaniards, Louis had eagerly enquired whether they came from his father; and Cornelia having answered no; that their errand was the young man's health; he listened with benevolent interest to Alice's questions, of what was become of Don Ferdinand. Cornelia shook her head; and describing how he had left her, had just finished her account of his strange behaviour, when they arrived at the garden wicket. Louis entered the house by a side-door, that he might rid himself of his disordered cloaths before he saw the family; and Cornelia went to communicate his arrival to her mother and uncle.
Being satisfied of the safety of her cousin, Alice felt her anxiety re-awaken for another object. She lingered in the garden behind her sister; she returned to the wicket, and stood gazing through it; then stepping up the sun dial mound, looked from side to side over the boundaries of the garden. Ferdinand was no where to be descried. The treacherous footing among the rocks, the perpendicular cliffs, his abstracted eye, and hurrying step, again presented themselves to her thoughts; and alarmed and agitated, she turned wistfully towards the hill beyond the little gate. "From that spot, I might certainly see him.--But if he were to see me, how strange he would think it! And Cornelia too, that I should absent myself from dear Louis, after such danger!"