Enough for me to think that she would be at least saved from Margrave. Her life associated with his!--contemplation horrible and ghastly!--from that fate she was saved. Later, she would recover the effect of an influence happily so brief. She might form some new attachment, some new tie; but love once withdrawn is never to be restored--and her love was withdrawn from me. I had but to release her, with my own lips, from our engagement,--she would welcome that release. Mournful but firm in these thoughts and these resolutions, I sought Mrs. Ashleigh's house. CHAPTER XLII. It was twilight when I entered, unannounced (as had been my wont in our familiar intercourse), the quiet sitting-room in which I expected to find mother and child. But Lilian was there alone, seated by the open window, her hands crossed and drooping on her knee, her eye fixed upon the darkening summer skies, in which the evening star had just stolen forth, bright and steadfast, near the pale sickle of a half-moon that was dimly visible, but gave as yet no light. Let any lover imagine the reception he would expect to meet from his betrothed coming into her presence after he had passed triumphant through a terrible peril to life and fame--and conceive what ice froze my blood, what anguish weighed down my heart, when Lilian, turning towards me, rose not, spoke not, gazed at me heedlessly as if at some indifferent stranger--and--and--But no matter. I cannot bear to recall it even now, at the distance of years! I sat down beside her, and took her hand, without pressing it; it rested languidly, passively in mine, one moment; I dropped it then, with a bitter sigh. "Lilian," I said quietly, "you love me no longer. Is it not so?" She raised her eyes to mine, looked at me wistfully, and pressed her hand on her forehead; then said, in a strange voice, "Did I ever love you? What do you mean?" "Lilian, Lilian, rouse yourself; are you not, while you speak, under some spell, some influence which you cannot describe nor account for?" She paused a moment before she answered, calmly, "No! Again I ask what do you mean?" "What do I mean? Do you forget that we are betrothed? Do you forget how often, and how recently, our vows of affection and constancy have been exchanged?" "No, I do not forget; but I must have deceived you and myself--" "It is true, then, that you love me no more?" "I suppose so." "But, oh, Lilian, is it that your heart is only closed to me; or is it--oh, answer truthfully--is it given to another,--to him--to him--against whom I warned you, whom I implored you not to receive? Tell me, at least, that your love is not gone to Margrave--" "To him! love to him! Oh, no--no--" "What, then, is your feeling towards him?" Lilian's face grew visibly paler, even in that dim light. "I know not," she said, almost in a whisper; "but it is partly awe--partly--" "What?" "Abhorrence!" she said almost fiercely, and rose to her feet, with a wild defying start.