But Sir Boyvill travelled with equal speed, and was many miles and many hours in advance. Gerard hoped to come up with him when he stopped at night. But the old gentleman was so eager in his pursuit, that he prosecuted his journey without rest. Gerard continued in the same way; travelling alone, he revolved again and again all that must be, all that might have been. Whatever happened, he was divided from Elizabeth for ever. Did she love him? he had scarcely questioned the return his affection would one day meet, till now that he had lost her for ever; and like a true lover, earnestly desirous to preserve some property in her he loved, he cherished the hope that she would share his deep regrets, and so prove that in heart they were one. How pleasant were the days they had passed at Oakly; all his sorrows there, and his passionate desire to unveil the mystery of his mother's fate, how had it given an interest to each hour, and imparted an untold and most sweet grace to the loved Elizabeth, that she should sympathize with so much fervour and kindness. How strange the chance that led the daughter of the destroyer to share the feelings of the unhappy victim's son; yet stranger still that destroyer had a child. Rambling among many tangled thoughts, Gerard started when first this idea suggested itself. Where was Falkner's boasted fidelity, on which he laid claim to compassion and pardon; where his assertion, that all his soul was centred in Alithea? and this child, an angel from her birth, was even then born to him; he opened the writing-case which contained the papers, and which he carried with him; he referred to them for explanation. Yes, Elizabeth then lived, and was not far from him; her hand had staid his arm, raised against his life. It was not enough that the phrensy of passion urged him to tear Alithea from her home and children, but even the existence of his own daughter was no restraint, he was willing to doom her from very childhood to a partnership in guilt and misery. Hitherto, despite all, and in despite of his resolve to meet him in mortal encounter, Neville had pitied Falkner; but now his heart grew hard against him; he began to revolve thoughts similar to those expressed by Sir Boyvill, and to call Elizabeth's father an impostor, his tale a lie. He reread the manuscript with a new feeling of skepticism; this time he was against the writer, he detected exaggeration, where, before, he had only found the energy of passion; he saw an attempt to gloss over guilt, where, before, he had read merely the struggles of conscience, the innate innocence of profound feeling, combating with the guilt, which circumstances may impart to our loftiest emotions; his very sufferings became but the just visitation of angry Heaven; he was a wretch, whom to kill were mercy--and Elizabeth, beautiful, generous, and pure, was his child! CHAPTER XXXV