"Then leave me, Lilian--I can be happy now, knowing that you came----"
"From Lady Grisel," said Lilian, hastily, "to express her sincere thanks for your kindness, and her deep sorrow for its sad requital, which (from what you told us,) we could not have contemplated. Indeed, Mr. Walter, we have been very unhappy on your account, and so, impelled by a sense of gratitude, I came to--to--" and, pausing, she covered her face with her hands and wept, for the new and humiliating situation in which she found herself had deeply agitated her. She did not perceive a dark figure that approached her softly, unseen by her friends, who were gaily chatting under the gloomy shadow of a projecting house, and quite absorbed in themselves.
"Lilian, you were ever good and gentle," said Walter, altogether overcome by her tears, and pressing her hand between his own. "Deeply, deeply do I feel the mortification you must endure; but do not weep thus--it wrings my very heart!"
She permitted him to retain her hand, (there was no harm in that,) but his thoughts became tumultuous; he kissed it; and as his lips touched her for the first time, his whole soul seemed to rush to them.
"Oh, Lilian, were I rich, I feel that I could love you."
"And if one is poor, can they not love too?" she asked artlessly.
"Oh, yes, Lilian--dear Lilian," said Walter, quite borne away by his passion, and greatly agitated; but his arm could not encircle her, for the envious grating intervened: "deeply do I feel at this moment how bitter, how hopeless, may be the love of the poor. But if I dared to tell you that the little page, Walter, who so often carried your mantle and led your horse's bridle--now, when a man, aspired so far----"
The girl trembled violently, and said, in a feeble voice of alarm, "Oh, hush--hush, some one approaches."
"Then away to Douglas, for he alone can protect you. One word ere you go: you have found a secure and secret shelter?"
"Oh, no, their house is already suspected. In the poor cottage of my nurse, old Elsie Elshender, at St. Rocque--there we bide our fate in poverty and obscurity."
"Hath fled to the west--but that person--he is certainly listening--adieu!"
"How can I forget?" she replied, naïvely, as she arose to withdraw; but lo! the person started forward, and her hand, which was yet glowing with Walter's kiss, was rudely seized in the rough grasp of the intruder. Fear utterly deprived the poor girl of power to cry out.