Next day Mary Ashwoode sat alone in the same room in which she had been so unpleasantly intruded¹ upon on the evening before. The unkindness of her brother had caused her many a bitter tear during the past night, and although still entirely³ in the dark as to Blarden's designs, there was yet something in his manner during the brief moment of their yesterday evening's rencontre which alarmed her, and suggested, in a few hurried and fevered dreams which troubled her broken slumbers⁴ of the night past, his dreaded⁵ image in a hundred wild and fantastic adventures.

 

She sat, as we have already said, alone in the self-same room, and as mechanically she pursued her work, her thoughts were far away, and wherever they turned still were they clouded with anxiety and sorrow. Wearied at length with the monotony of an occupation which availed not even momentarily to draw her attention from the griefs which weighed upon her, she threw her work aside, and taking the guitar which in gayer hours had often yielded its light music to her touch, and trying to forget the consciousness of her changed and lonely existence in the happier recollections which returned in these once familiar sounds, she played and sang the simple melodies which had been her favourites long ago; but while thus her hands strayed over the chords of the instrument, and the low and silvery cadences⁶ of her sweet voice recalled many a touching⁷ remembrance of the past, she was startled and recalled at once from her momentary⁸ forgetfulness of the present by a voice close behind her which exclaimed,—

 

"Capital—never a better—encore, encore;" and on looking hurriedly round, her glance at once encountered and recognized the form and features of Nicholas Blarden. "Go on, go on, do," said that gentleman in his most engaging way, and with an

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