The hours were very sad that they spent apart. The door closed on Elizabeth, and love, and hope, and all the pride of life vanished with her. Falkner was again a prisoner, an accused felon--a man over whom impended the most hideous fate--whom the dogs of law barked round, and looked on as their prey. His high heart often quailed. He laid his head on his pillow, desiring never again to raise it--despair kept his lids open the livelong nights, while naught but palpable darkness brooded over his eyeballs; he rose languid--dispirited--revolving thoughts of death; till at last she came who by degrees dispelled the gloom, and shed over his benighted soul the rays of her pure spirit. She also was miserable in solitude; the silent evening hours spent apart from him were melancholy and drear. Nothing interrupted their stillness. She felt deserted by every human being, and was indeed reduced to the extremity of loneliness. In the town and neighbourhood many pitied, many admired her, and some offered their services; but none visited or tried to cheer the solitary hours of the devoted daughter. As the child of a man accused of murder, there was a barrier between her and the world. The English are generous to their friends, but they are never kind to strangers; the tie of brotherhood, which Christ taught as uniting all mankind, is unacknowledged by them. They so fear that their sullen fireside should be unduly invaded, and so expect to be ill-treated, that each man makes a Martello tower of his home, and keeps watch against the gentler charities of life, as from an invading enemy. Hour after hour, therefore, Elizabeth spent--thought her only companion. From Falkner and his miserable fortunes, sometimes her reflections strayed to Gerard Neville--the generous friend on whom she wholly relied, yet who could in no way aid or comfort her. They were divided. He thought of her, she knew: his constant and ardent disposition would cause her to be for ever the cherished object of his reveries; and now and then, as she took her morning ride, or looked from her casement at night upon the high stars, and pale, still moon, Nature spoke to her audibly of him, and her soul overflowed with tenderness. Still he was far--no word from him reached her--no token of living remembrance. Lady Cecil also--she neither wrote nor sent. The sense of abandonment is hard to bear, and many bitter tears did the young sufferer shed--and many a yearning had she to enter, with her ill-starred father, the silent abode of the tomb--scarcely more still or dark than the portion of life which was allotted to them, even while existence was warm in their hearts, and the natural impulse of their souls was to seek sympathy and receive consolation. CHAPTER XLIII