to the cold night air and by her intense mental suffering, sometimes lying so still and prostrate that her mother, with Percival and Rhiwallon, who had been at once summoned from the castle--whither indeed the physician had but just returned with the earl from town--bent in agony over her pillow, fearing lest unawares the faint breathing might wholly cease and the pure young spirit take its flight from the tortured body. During the first lonely night of watching, ere the messenger despatched in hot haste to Bryn Afon could retrace with the faithful lover and physician the weary miles of hill and dale which lay between the Gwynnon Vale and Craig Aran, Lady Bryn Afon learned from Shanno's wandering lips the story of her midnight agony by the dark pool, and that vow, by which she had for ever crushed out all hope of earthly joy from her own young life and Percival's--those two bright young lives so soon to have been made one--and blighted all her mother's long-cherished hopes. Poor Lady Bryn Afon! Her own heart felt crushed within her, yet she could not part with all hope without a struggle. She would wait patiently until her daughter's health of body and mind returned, and then reason gently with her and soothe away all remembrance of the strange black shadow of which she raved, which was doubtless but a creature of her sick and deluded fancy. Meanwhile she would tell Percival none of his darling's unhappy ravings, merely explaining to him that her illness had been caused by the cruelly-sudden knowledge of the curse, which had come upon her, and by the horror of the circumstances under which it had been revealed. And the Black Horseman, sorely troubled in spirit, yet clinging with a fierce tenacity to his belief in his wondrous antidote to the cruel curse, assured Percival that all would yet be well, and bade him look to hear his marriage-bells ring cheerily ere many weeks had passed; though oft, when alone in his own chamber, he was wont to smite his breast, and cry in sudden bitterness of awful misgiving; "May God forgive me if I lie!" But the chaplain was young, and hope was brave within him, and knowing well the sensitive and tender heart of her he loved, he was fain to look upon his great happiness as but postponed, and not destroyed by this untoward sickness; yet he was at times sorely perplexed by her sad and constant cry that she had deceived him and broken her mother's heart. "I did not know, Percival, I did not know!" she would cry wildly, and her lover would clasp her hands within his own, and murmur softly-whispered prayers in her ear till his loved voice unconsciously soothed her into quietness.