then composed enough to fetch a lamp which remained lighted in the room she had left, and to render herself at least partly useful in suggesting and applying the usual modes for recalling the suspended sense. In this they at length succeeded, for Eveline fetched a fuller sigh, and opened her eyes; but presently shut them again, and letting her head drop on Rose's bosom, fell into a strong shuddering fit; while her faithful damsel, chafing her hands and her temples alternately with affectionate assiduity, and mingling caresses with these efforts, exclaimed aloud, 'She lives!—She is recovering!—Praised be God!'
'Praised be God!' was echoed in a solemn tone from the window of the apartment; and turning towards it in terror, Rose beheld the armed and plumed head of the soldier who had come so opportunely to their assistance, and who, supported by his arms, had raised himself so high as to be able to look into the interior of the cabinet.
Rose immediately ran towards him. 'Go—go—good friend,' she said; 'the lady recovers—your reward shall await you another time. Go— begone!—yet stay—keep on your post, and I will call you if there is farther need. Begone—be faithful, and be secret.'
The soldier obeyed without answering a word, and she presently saw him descend into the moat. Rose then returned back to her mistress, whom she found supported by Gillian, moaning feebly, and muttering hurried and unintelligible ejaculations, all intimating that she had laboured under a violent shock sustained from some alarming cause.
Dame Gillian had no sooner recovered some degree of self- possession, than her curiosity became active in proportion. 'What means all this?' she said to Rose; 'what has been doing among you?'
'I do not know,' replied Rose.
'If you do not,' said Gillian, 'who should?—Shall I call the other women, and raise the house?'
'Not for your life,' said Rose, 'till my lady is able to give her own orders; and for this apartment, so help me Heaven, as I will do my best to discover the secrets it contains!—Support my mistress the whilst.'
So saying, she took the lamp in her hand, and, crossing her brow, stepped boldly across the mysterious threshold, and, holding up the light, surveyed the apartment.
It was merely an old vaulted chamber, of very moderate dimensions. In one corner was an image of the Virgin, rudely cut, and placed above a Saxon font of curious workmanship. There were two seats and a couch, covered with coarse tapestry, on which it seemed that Eveline had been reposing. The fragments of the shattered casement lay on the floor; but that opening had been only made when the soldier forced it in, and she saw no other access by which a stranger could have entered an apartment, the ordinary access to which was barred and bolted.
Rose felt the influence of those terrors which she had hitherto surmounted; she cast her mantle hastily around her head, as if to shroud her sight from some blighting vision, and tripping back to the cabinet, with more speed and a less firm step than when she left it, she directed Gillian to lend her assistance in conveying Eveline to the next room; and having done so, carefully secured the door of communication, as if to put a barrier betwixt them, and the suspected danger.
The Lady Eveline was now so far recovered that she could sit up, and was trying to speak, though but faintly. 'Rose,' she said at length, 'I have seen her—my doom is sealed.'
Rose immediately recollected the imprudence of suffering Gillian to hear what her mistress might say at such an awful moment, and hastily adopting the proposal she had before declined, desired her to go and call other two maidens of their mistress's household.
'And where am I to find them in this house,' said Dame Gillian, 'where strange men run about one chamber at midnight, and devils, for aught I know, frequent the rest of the habitation?'
'Find them where you can,' said Rose, sharply; 'but begone presently.'
Gillian withdrew lingeringly, and muttering at the same time something which could not distinctly be understood. No sooner was she gone, than Rose, giving way to the enthusiastic affection which she felt for her mistress, implored her, in the most tender terms, to open her eyes, (for she had again closed them,) and speak to Rose, her own Rose, who was ready, if necessary, to die by her mistress's side.
'To-morrow—to-morrow, Rose,' murmured Eveline—'I cannot speak at present.'
'Only disburden your mind with one word—tell what has thus alarmed you—what danger you apprehend.'
'I have seen her,' answered Eveline—'I have seen the tenant of yonder chamber—the vision fatal to my race!—Urge me no more—to- morrow you shall know all.'[20]
As Gillian entered with two of the maidens of her mistress's household, they removed the Lady Eveline, by Rose's directions, into a chamber at some distance which the latter had occupied, and placed her in one of their beds, where Rose, dismissing the others (Gillian excepted) to seek repose where they could find it, continued to watch her mistress. For some time she continued very much disturbed, but, gradually, fatigue, and the influence of some narcotic which Gillian had sense enough to recommend and prepare, seemed to compose her spirits. She fell into a deep slumber, from which she did not awaken until the sun was high over the distant hills.
CHAPTER THE FIFTEENTH.
When Eveline first opened her eyes, it seemed to be without any recollection of what had passed on the night preceding. She looked round the apartment, which was coarsely and scantily furnished, as one destined for the use of domestics and menials, and said to Rose, with a smile, 'Our good kinswoman maintains the ancient Saxon hospitality at a homely rate, so far as lodging is concerned. I could have willingly parted with last night's profuse supper, to have obtained a bed of a softer texture. Methinks my limbs feel as if I had been under all the flails of a Franklin's barn-yard.'
'I am glad to see you so pleasant, madam,' answered Rose, discreetly avoiding any reference to the events of the night before.
Dame Gillian was not so scrupulous. 'Your ladyship last night lay down on a better bed than this,' she said, 'unless I am much mistaken; and Rose Flammock and yourself know best why you left it.'
If a look could have killed, Dame Gillian would have been in deadly peril from that which Rose shot at her, by way of rebuke for this ill-advised communication. It had instantly the effect which was to be apprehended, for Lady Eveline seemed at first surprised and confused; then, as recollections of the past arranged themselves in her memory, she folded her hands, looked on the ground, and wept bitterly, with much agitation.
Rose entreated her to be comforted, and offered to fetch the old Saxon chaplain of the house to administer spiritual consolation, if her grief rejected temporal comfort.
'No—call him not,' said Eveline, raising her head and drying her eyes—'I have had enough of Saxon kindness. What a fool was I to expect, in that hard and unfeeling woman, any commiseration for my youth—my late sufferings—my orphan condition! I will not permit her a poor triumph over the Norman blood of Berenger, by letting her see how much I have suffered under her inhuman infliction. But first, Rose, answer me truly, was any inmate of Baldringham witness to my distress last night?'
Rose assured her that she had been tended exclusively by her own retinue, herself and Gillian, Blanche and
