And then Jane was carried away and placed on her pretty white bed, and tended carefully by her mother and her sister and her waiting-maids, until life came reluctantly back again, and she waked once more into the consciousness of misery. “Is he gone, mother?” she demanded in the first faint tones that conscious animation supplied to the tongue; “is he gone?” “No, my dear, he is not gone; nor is he going yet,” replied Mrs. Calvert. “That's right!--that's right!” she exclaimed. And then, as she looked her parent earnestly in the face, she asked--“Mother! do you remember how _you_ ever loved my father?” That little simple appeal was irresistible, as a world of tears soon testified. After that Jane grew calmer, and sat up with her mother and sister to catch the air from an opened window that looked through a nest of vine leaves into the garden. Meantime Roger Calvert, his father, and Colin, had further conversation below stairs, which ended in producing a determination on the part of Colin and his friend of great interest as well as importance in our history, but which will be farther explained in another chapter. CHAPTER XIII. _Reveals various curious particulars; of which the mysterious disappearance of Jane is not the least._ In the desperate state of things implied by the proceedings last recorded, it will not be marvelled at that measures equally desperate should have been projected by Colin in conjunction with his friend Roger; though eminently calculated, provided they could but be carried out, to bring him that final satisfaction which it appeared impossible for him to attain through any other more moderate course. Roger's general conduct towards Colin, throughout the affair, had inspired the latter with every confidence in him, and the certainty of being able to command his services in any enterprise which had the happiness of Jane and himself for its object. Nothing indeed but that confidence could possibly have induced Colin to take the earliest opportunity that offered, after the scenes described in the preceding chapter, to draw Mr. Roger Calvert into an unobserved part of the house, and propose to him that they should settle the matter at once and for ever in a manner already suggested,--that is, through the medium of an elopement during the night. Colin argued that it was now sufficiently evident he had no chance of succeeding unless by resorting to that gentle violence just alluded to. He contended that Mr. and Mrs. Calvert would never give way without it,--that if once done it would afford them a capital excuse for reconciling themselves to the match, when such reconciliation had become a matter of necessity, without involving them in any of that unpleasant compromise of principle, as they supposed it, which at present constituted the great obstacle to their union.