The Baron, however, was not exactly in that state of serenity and composure of which he endeavoured to assume the appearance.--That voice!--what could it mean?--from whom, and from what quarter could it come?--It might be the echo of some one confined in a cell over his head, or beneath his feet. It could not allude to him, or it might be a contrivance to alarm him from his purpose; yet, if he mentioned it to his friend, he would treat it as the delusion of a distempered fancy. All he could determine upon doing was to hasten the preparations for his marriage, and, if Roseline should be over-ruled by her father, and give him her hand with reluctance, the fault would bring it punishment upon their own heads; but he still hoped that, when once she became his wife, and saw herself surrounded with splendor, her coy airs would be done away: she would set a proper value on his love and generosity, and as Baroness Frizosbourne be the happiest of her sex.--With such consoling and fallacious hopes he endeavoured to banish his doubts, and compose himself to rest, and, soon forgetting Isabella, and the warning voice of his invisible monitor, he sunk into the arms of sleep. CHAP. III. Not so soon, nor so easily, did the artless, the devoted Roseline lose the remembrance of her heart-felt sorrows. Every hour, every moment, as it fled, brought with it an increase of anguish to her agitated mind. The most distant idea of an union with the Baron was scarcely to be borne, as the certainty of it no longer admitted of a doubt, she shrunk from her own reflections as she would have done from the stroke of death. To be for ever torn from Walter--to see him no more,--no more to converse with and soothe the sorrows of that oppressed and solitary sufferer,--was by far a more insupportable trial than that she was doomed to endure in her own mind and person.