“How pale you look, Jasper,” she said earnestly; “are you ill at ease, dearest, or anxious about me? If it be the last, vex not yourself, I pray you; for I am not in the least afraid, either of the fatigue or of the voyage. For the rest,” she added, with a bright smile, intended to reassure him, “I have long wished to see _la belle France_, as they call it; and to me the change of scene, so long as you are with me, dearest Jasper, will be but a change of pleasure. I hope I have not kept you waiting. But I could not sleep during the night for the thunder, and about daybreak I was overpowered by a heavy slumber. I did not even hear you leave me.” “I saw that you slept heavily, my own love,” he made answer, “and was careful not to wake you, knowing what you would have to undergo to-day, and wishing to let you get all the rest you could before starting. But come, let us go to breakfast. We have little time to lose, the horses will be at the door in half an hour.” “Come, then,” she answered, “I am ready;” and she took his arm as she spoke, and passed, leaning on him, through the long suit of rooms, which now, for above a year had been her home in mingled happiness and sorrow. “Heigho!” she murmured, with a half sigh, “dear Widecomb! dear, dear Widecomb, many a happy hour have I spent within your walls, and it goes hard with me to leave you. I wonder, shall I ever see you more.” “Never,” replied the deep voice of her husband, in so strange a tone, that it made her turn her head and look at him quickly. A strange, dark spasm had convulsed his face, and was not yet passed from it, when her eye met his. She thought it was the effect of natural grief at leaving his fine place—the place of his birth—as an outlaw and an exile; and half repenting that she had so spoken as to excite his feelings, she hastened to soothe them, as she thought, by a gayer and more hopeful word. “Never heed, dearest Jasper,” she said, pressing his arm, on which she hung, “if we do love old Widecomb, there are as fair places elsewhere, on the world’s green face, and if there were not, happy minds will aye find, or make happy places. And we, why spite of time and tide, wind and weather, we _will_ be happy, Jasper. And I doubt not a moment, that we shall yet live to spend happy days once more in Widecomb.” “I fear, never,” replied the young man, solemnly. It was a singular feeling—he did not repent, he did not falter or shrink in the least from his murderous purpose; but, for his life, he could not give her a hope, he could not say a word to cheer her, or deceive her, further than he was compelled to do in order to carry out his end. The morning meal passed silently and sadly; for, in spite of all her efforts to be gay, and to make him lighter-hearted, his brow was clouded, and he would not converse; and she, fearing to vex him, or to trespass on what she believed to be his deep regret at leaving home, ceased to intrude upon his sorrow.