"No, my Madeline; I have no doubt of your affection. When you loved such as me, I knew at once how blind, how devoted must be that love. You were not won through the usual avenues to a woman's heart; neither wit nor gaiety, nor youth nor beauty, did you behold in me. Whatever attracted you towards me, that which must have been sufficiently powerful to make you overlook these ordinary allurements, will be also sufficiently enduring to resist all ordinary changes. But listen, Madeline. Do not yet ask me wherefore; but I fear, that a certain fatality will constrain us to leave this spot, very shortly after our wedding." "How disappointed my poor father will be!" said Madeline, sighing. "Do not, on any account, mention this conversation to him, or to Ellinor; 'sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.'" Madeline wondered, but said no more. There was a pause for some minutes. "Do you remember," observed Madeline, "that it was about here we met that strange man whom you had formerly known?" "Ha! was it?--Here, was it?" "What has become of him?" "He is abroad, I hope," said Aram, calmly. "Yes, let me think; by this time he must be in France. Dearest, let us rest here on this dry mossy bank for a little while;" and Aram drew his arm round her waist, and, his countenance brightening as if with some thought of increasing joy, he poured out anew those protestations of love, and those anticipations of the future, which befitted the eve of a morrow so full of auspicious promise. The heaven of their fate seemed calm and glowing, and Aram did not dream that the one small cloud of fear which was set within it, and which he alone beheld afar, and unprophetic of the storm, was charged with the thunderbolt of a doom, he had protracted, not escaped. CHAPTER IX. WALTER AND THE CORPORAL ON THE ROAD.--THE EVENING SETS IN.-- THE GIPSEY TENTS.--ADVENTURE WITH THE HORSEMAN.--THE CORPORAL DISCOMFITED, AND THE ARRIVAL AT KNARESBOROUGH. Long had he wandered, when from far he sees A ruddy flame that gleamed betwixt the trees. . . . . Sir Gawaine prays him tell Where lies the road to princely Corduel. --The Knight of the Sword. "Well, Bunting, we are not far from our night's resting-place," said Walter, pointing to a milestone on the road. "The poor beast will be glad when we gets there, your honour," answered the Corporal, wiping his brows. "Which beast, Bunting?" "Augh!--now your honour's severe! I am glad to see you so merry." Walter sighed heavily; there sat no mirth at his heart at that moment. "Pray Sir," said the Corporal after a pause, "if not too bold, has your honour heard how they be doing at Grassdale?"