rest in death; and, in the ghostly stillness of those dark hours, the cry, the last desperate cry of a crushed and bleeding heart, went shuddering up to the ear of Eternal Pity, 66 My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" CHAPTER XLIII. "BLOOD IS THICKER THAN WATER." But ask not, hope not, one relenting thought Whose heart with sullen, speechless vengeance fraught Broods in dark triumph. THE MAREMMA. THE riot of the elements subsided with the approach of dawn, and the Sabbath morn broke over city and country, fresh, still, and bright, scattering repose and beauty wherever the rosy radiance fell; but that cheering calm which succeeds to the agitation and strife of nature is no type of the calm of despair which broods over the human heart when the raging tornado of passion has done its worst, and nothing is left to destroy. In such a stupor of misery, fast verging to madness, Alice was sitting or cowering in the chimney-corner of her own chamber, unconscious of how she had crawled thither, or that her neighbour, who had found her, as we have described, in Janet's room, had entreated to be allowed to stay with her, and had been harshly, passionately, driven away. The girl's arms were crossed, and fell over her knees-her head was completely sunk in them-her long hair streaming round her; and, huddled together, hating the light, hating herself, shrouded in the veil of her misery, she had sat and was sitting still. Not alone though. Near her, with knitted brow and threatening look, stood Norman-the undutiful son, the heartless brother, the perverter of holiest things to most abhorred ends, who had returned, freshly pardoned by the adversary whose destruction he had sworn to compass, to trample upon his sister in her wretchedness, and, deluded by his own dark imaginings, erect himself into a judge over her whose whole daily life and conversation were a witness against him. Exasperated beyond all bounds at the failure of his attempt upon Lord Dundee-goaded still further by the careless disregard of his utmost hostility which could dictate that nobleman's liberation of him-disappointed in his fanatical desire either to slay the most dangerous opponent of all he venerated, or gain by a public trial and execution the renown of ranking with those whom thousands revered as martyrs-the violent passions which could no longer vent themselves in deeds had burst forth in an insulting defiance of his enemy's power, a refusal of his clemency, and a challenge to him to do his worst. The refusal was set aside, the defiance heard with a smile of ineffable disdain; and Norman, craving a death continually denied to his insatiable self-righteousness, was expelled from the house which he had hoped was to become an antechamber to the scene of his selfglorification, as a thing unfit even to be feared, thrown away as one might pluck off an insignificant insect without even caring to set one's foot upon it-a clemency hateful to him from any man, but from Claverhouse an outrage, a degradation, a source of more deadly abhorrence, never to be cancelled or expiated. "Thou art only a reptile," were Lord Dundee's last words to him; "but a loathsome one enough, whose neck I might have wrung, to deliver the world from thy noxious existence; but there is one who bears thy name, whose life was drawn from the same fountain which gave thee thine-I will not destroy it for the promise I made to her-for her sake do I refrain from closing my hand and breaking thee to powder, although assuredly some devil in man's shape was placed in thy cradle instead of her brother." Armed by the belief engendered in his mind by these hasty and imprudent sentences, he now charged her with the disgraceful attachment which to his fancy they implied; and, justifiable, legitimate, nay honour able, as that anger would have been if righteously merited and christianly shown, his was neither the temper nor the creed in which it could escape from becoming what it then was. "Miserable girl!" he exclaimed fiercely, when he found his reviling unheeded, his taunts unanswered, "dost thou hear me? art thou so steeped to the lips in thy infamy that thou despisest my anger? Rise and kneel down, strew ashes on thy degraded head, gird thyself with sackcloth, and do penance in the spirit before me, ere thou show thyself before the eyes of the congregation! Obey me, I say! stand up and answer for thyself!" He dragged her up with such unmanly violence that a little more and the slight bone must have snapped under his iron grasp. The pain must have been exquisite, but she only gave vent to a suppressed moan, and looked reproachfully at him. rest. "Art thou stricken dumb?" he asked, for she had made no more reply to this adjuration than to all the "Come, have done with this pretty hypocritical shyness, cast off thy sweet maidenly shamefacedness, or I swear that I will have thy confession torn from thee with scourges!" "My confession?" She said it after him twice or thrice, like a child conning a wearisome lesson. "Ay-thy confession, wanton! Thy confession, degenerate daughter of a degenerate and lukewarm father! Who was with thee last night-who stole hither like a thief? Who bargained for the sister's honour? What ransom was paid for the brother's life?" The name which he hurled on her from between his gnashing teeth was one which, innocent, would have fired every womanly instinct into reckless defiance of his wrath-which, guilty, would have bowed her to the dust to hide her ignominy as she might. But Alice only uttered a delirious half-laugh, that made his hair bristle, and said carelessly, "That's false, brother! and you ken it-none better." Horror! Was she distraught-insane? or was this only the artful playing of a part to defeat him, and escape the public exposure, the open atonement for her supposed guilt, to which he had resolved to bring her, by compelling her, in the remorseless fashion of his sect, his day, and his fanatical theology, to do |