The moment that the verdict was delivered, Sir Boyvill and his son rode back to Dromore. Mr. Ashley and the solicitor accompanied them--and all the ordinary mechanism of life, which intrudes so often for our good, so to justle together discordant characters and wear off poignant impressions, now forced Neville, who was desirous to give himself up to meditation, to abide for several hours in the society of these gentlemen. There was a dinner to be eaten--Mr. Ashley partook of it, and Gerard felt that his absence would be indecorous. After dinner he was put to a trial--more severe to a sensitive, imaginative mind than any sharp strokes of commonplace adversity. He was minutely questioned as to the extent of his acquaintance with Falkner--how he came to form it--how often he had seen him--and what had drawn confession from him they named the criminal. These inquiries had been easily answered, but that the name of Elizabeth must be introduced--and, as he expected, at the mention of a daughter, a world of inquiry followed--and coarse remarks fell from his father's lips--which harrowed up his soul; while he felt that he had no exculpation to offer, nor any explanation that might take from her the name and association of the child of a murderer. As soon as he could he burst away. He rushed into the open air, and hurried to the spot where he could best combat with and purify the rebellious emotions of his heart--none but the men placed as watch were near his mother's grave. Seeing the young squire, they retreated--and he who had come on foot at such quick pace that he scarcely felt the ground he trod, threw himself on the sands, grateful to find himself alone with nature. The moon was hurrying on among the clouds--now bright in the clear ether, now darkened by heavy masses--and the mirroring ocean was sometimes alive with sparkling silver, now veiled and dim, so that you could hear, but not see, the breaking of the surge. An eloquent author has said, in contempt of such a being: "Try to conceive a man without the ideas of God and eternity; of the good, the true, the beautiful, and the infinite." Neville was certainly not such. There was poetry in his very essence; and enthusiasm for the ideal of the excellent gave his character a peculiar charm, to any one equally exalted and refined. His mother's decaying form lay beneath the sands on which he was stretched, death was there in its most hideous form; beauty, and even form had deserted that frame-work which once was the dear being, whose caresses, so warm and fond, it yet often thrilled him to remember. He had demanded from Heaven the revelation of his mother's fate, _here_ he found it, here in the narrow grave lay the evidence of her virtues and her death; did he thank Heaven? even while he did, he felt with bitterness that the granting of his prayer was inextricably linked with the ruin of a being, as good and fair as she whose honour he had so earnestly desired to vindicate.