In utter desolation of spirit, therefore, our unhappy hero, even at the moment we are describing, rapidly descended the height on which the castle stood, and strode across the wide extent of park, thus abdicating, as it were, the princely domain of his forefathers, with scarcely a consciousness of where he was, or what his purpose; and when, after pursuing his journey for a time, he became capable of any approach to reflection, his thoughts were all of wretchedness. An exile, an outlaw, dishonoured, beggared, disguised, he was quitting his native land, probably for ever; unless, indeed, he should be pursued and dragged back, to suffer an ignominious death. He was, it is true, in the very act of escaping for the present this last, and in the estimation of most people worst, because irremediable ill; but accompanying this reflection were sensations which, perhaps, he could not himself have defined. For, since his sentence had been pronounced, notwithstanding the anxious efforts still making in his behalf, he had been strenuously preparing his mind for the most fatal issue, and, with the assistance of the pious Mr. Edwards, endeavouring to wean his affections from things below and to centre all his hopes in heaven. However little understood such feelings may be by those who are engaged in the busy whirl of terrestrial concerns, to those who have lately stood on the brink of the grave, they possess an awful reality not soon to be forgotten. Compared with views of peace, and rest, and hope so obtained, there was, as a counterpoise to the mere instinct of self preservation, a strong sense of distaste to the weary pilgrimage of life renewed; nor will this seem overstrained, when we remember under what circumstances it was renewed; when we contemplate the universal blight which had fallen upon the fair spring of all his earthly prospects. At an early hour the next morning, the melancholy ceremony of Willoughby's funeral, which had been so long delayed in the hope of his brother being able to take with honour his place of chief mourner, was at length obliged to be performed in all the hopeless misery of present circumstances. Immediately after the conclusion of the dismal solemnities the family set out for London. Lady Arden had determined to remain in England till every effort had been made to obtain the reprieve of her son; but, if all failed, to join him under a feigned name at Geneva, the place at which they had appointed to meet; and become, for the remainder of her sojourn upon earth, the kind companion and solace of his wanderings. Two of her daughters were already married; Mr. Cameron had generously declared his unaltered determination to become the husband of Madeline; Lady Arden had that morning consigned to the grave the remains of poor Willoughby; Alfred alone, therefore, now claimed all her care, all her tenderness, all the consolation her maternal affection could bestow.