How the affair would have concluded had not our hero made his escape, remains enveloped in mystery; that circumstance might have been supposed to supersede the necessity for a reprieve. It was, however, generally believed, that Lady Arden had received an assurance that there should be no efforts made to pursue her son, or to require him at the hands of foreign powers, but that unless some circumstances in his favour came to light, it would be necessary for him to live abroad, and remain unknown. CHAPTER XV. How our hero made his way to, and through France, he never afterwards could clearly call to mind. Every perception was turned inward; while some mysterious spell seemed endued with the power of compelling his thoughts to go again and again the torturing round of remembrances, every one equally fraught with wretchedness. The miserable end of poor Willoughby--never could that heart-rending scene be erased from his memory--the devotion of his fond parent--such a thought might have soothed; but had he not been, and was he not still doomed to be, to her a source of unparalleled suffering. Then there was another being, whose idea he dreaded to approach--and she had once, for one short period, been all his dream of bliss. There was certainly but little to draw him from his absorbing reflections in the dull and monotonous plains of Burgundy and French Compté. In due time, however, he left these behind him, and began to ascend the heights above Poligni; but he felt not the invigorating influence of the mountain air. He travelled on through the magnificent scenery of the great military road; yet scarcely saw its precipices, its waterfalls, its forests of beech and pine. At length the magnificent lake itself opened to his view; stretching from Geneva to Chillon, and reflecting, as in an immense mirror, the surrounding Alps with their fleecy region of eternal snows, their glacier cliffs, glittering in the sun-beams, their dark blue zone of wood, rock, precipice, and torrent; and their smiling fertile base. He completed the winding descent of the Jura, commanding the whole way to the very verge of the lake, a full view of the fairy scenery, the fertile slopes, the glowing vine-yards, the cornfields, orchards, gardens, towns, villages and villas; the wooded brows, tranquil vales, and sparkling streams, of the enchanting Pays de Vaud; yet he felt no pleasurable sensations arise: if the splendour of effect in some measure aroused him, it was rather to a state of more active suffering than before; as though the wilderness within were rendered more desolate by comparison with the paradise without. He now proceeded by a beautiful drive along the water's edge to the gates of Geneva; and here found the usually vexatious delays, respecting passports, &c., peculiarly annoying, from the degrading consciousness of disguise.