A start--an exclamation was the reply. He continued: "If there be any truth in the tale I have heard, my dear, injured mother is dead; that is, if what I have heard concern her--mean anything, or is not a mere fabrication. You shall hear all by-and-by; I will relate all I have been told. It is a sad story if it be hers, if it be a true story at all." These disjointed expressions raised the curiosity and interest of his auditors to their height. It was evening; instead of going on with his account, he passed into the adjoining room, opened the glass door, and stepped out into the open air. It was dark, scarcely could you see the dim outline of the woods--yet, far on the horizon where sky and sea met, there was a streak of light. Sophia and Elizabeth followed to the room whence he had gone, and drew their chairs near the open window and pressed each other's hands. "What can it all mean?" at length said Lady Cecil. "Hush!" whispered Elizabeth--"he is here, I saw him cross the streak of light." "True," said Gerard's voice--his person they could not distinguish, for they were in darkness; "I am here, and I will tell you now all I have heard. I will sit at your feet; give me your hand, Sophy, that I may feel that you are really present--it is too dark to see anything." He did not ask for Elizabeth's hand, but he took it, and placing it on Lady Cecil's, gently clasped both: "I cannot see either of you--but indulge my wayward humour; so much of coarse and commonplace has been thrown on the most sacred subject in the world, that I want to bathe my soul in darkness--a darkness as profound as that which wraps my mother's fate. Now for my story." CHAPTER XXII "You know that I did not find this man, this Hoskins, at Lancaster. By his direction I sought him in London, and, after some trouble, found him. He was busy in his own affairs, and it was difficult to get at him; but, by perseverance, and asking him to dine with me at a coffee-house, I at last succeeded. He is a native of Ravenglass, a miserable town on the seashore of Cumberland, with which I am well acquainted, for it is not far from Dromore. He emigrated to America before I was born; and after various speculations, is at last settled at Boston, in some sort of trade, the exigences of which brought him over here, and he seized the opportunity to visit his family. There they were, still inhabiting the forlorn town of Ravenglass; their cottage still looking out on a dreary extent of sand, mud, and marsh; and the far mountains, which would seem to invite the miserable dwellers of the flats to shelter themselves in their green recesses, but they invite in vain.