The stars were shining quietly over the old gray castle (for castle it really was), as I now came within view of it. To the left, and in the rear of the house, the trees of the park, grouped by distance, seemed blent into one thick mass of wood; to the right, as I now (descending the cliff by a gradual path) entered on the level sands, and at about the distance of a league from the main shore, a small islet, notorious as the resort and shelter of contraband adventurers, scarcely relieved the wide and glassy azure of the waves. The tide was out; and passing through one of the arches worn in the bay, I came somewhat suddenly by the cavern. Seated there on a crag of stone I found Aubrey. My acquaintance with Isora and her father had so immediately succeeded the friendly meeting with Aubrey which I last recorded, and had so utterly engrossed my time and thoughts, that I had not taken of that interview all the brotherly advantage which I might have done. My heart now smote me for my involuntary negligence. I dismounted, and fastening my horse to one of a long line of posts that ran into the sea, approached Aubrey and accosted him. "Alone, Aubrey? and at an hour when my uncle always makes the old walls ring with revel? Hark! can you not hear the music even now? It comes from the ball-room, I think, does it not?" "Yes," said Aubrey, briefly, and looking down upon a devotional book, which (as was his wont) he had made his companion. "And we are the only truants!--Well, Gerald will supply our places with a lighter step, and, perhaps, a merrier heart." Aubrey sighed. I bent over him affectionately (I loved that boy with something of a father's as well as a brother's love), and as I did bend over him, I saw that his eyelids were red with weeping. "My brother--my own dear brother," said I, "what grieves you?--are we not friends, and more than friends?--what can grieve you that grieves not me?" Suddenly raising his head, Aubrey gazed at me with a long, searching intentness of eye; his lips moved, but he did not answer. "Speak to me, Aubrey," said I, passing my arm over his shoulder; "has any one, anything, hurt you? See, now, if I cannot remedy the evil." "Morton," said Aubrey, speaking very slowly, "do you believe that Heaven pre-orders as well as foresees our destiny?" "It is the schoolman's question," said I, smiling; "but I know how these idle subtleties vex the mind; and you, my brother, are ever too occupied with considerations of the future. If Heaven does pre-order our destiny, we know that Heaven is merciful, and we should be fearless, as we arm ourselves in that knowledge." "Morton Devereux," said Aubrey, again repeating my name, and with an evident inward effort that left his lip colourless, and yet lit his dark dilating eye with a strange and unwonted fire,--"Morton Devereux, I feel that I am predestined to the power of the Evil One!"