But Evaline had something at heart that prevented her from eating. She forbore speaking for a time, hoping that her father would mention the subject: but at last, unable to restrain her impatience, or, to speak more correctly, her anxiety, she broke the silence. “Didst thou put Felix to the question, father?” she inquired. “I did,” answered Sir Edgar, “but gleaned no more from him, in answer to my inquiries, than we knew before. He cannot even conjecture how the cavalier hath disappeared.” “I do fear me, Sir, he is a revengeful man,” said Evaline, hesitatingly. “No, no, thou wrongest him,” replied Sir Edgar. “’Tis true, he hath taken a dislike to the cavalier; but ’tis because he thinks, all things regarded together, that he is one of the Government spies. And thou knowest, Evaline, the country is overrun with these folk.” “I’ll be sworn he is no spy, Sir,” said Evaline, earnestly. “But where is Felix now?” “At my desire, he has ridden over to the Grange,” answered Sir Edgar, “with the view of making every possible inquiry for the cavalier, wherever there is any chance, from the little we know of him, of obtaining the least information. Old Adam was to have gone with him; but I have, on reflection, sent him on to London, to bear the tidings of my arrest to Master Gilbert, the attorney.” “The cavalier may have returned to the Grange, when Felix arrives there,” remarked Evaline. “He cannot--I am sure, he cannot be a spy.” “Indeed, I think with thee, Evaline,” said Sir Edgar. “I begin to fear he hath met with some mischance.” Though Evaline had feared the same thing over and over again, her father’s utterance of these words, whether because they took her by surprise, or because of the confirmation which they afforded to her worst and least welcome expectations, shot a thrill of the keenest anguish through her anxious bosom. That one who, at the imminent risk of his own life, had preserved the lives of herself and her father, and afterwards so nobly spared that of her cousin--who was so courageous, so high-minded, and so engaging--so admirably endowed both in person and heart--should, as it were, under their roof, incur the least possible hurt, was certainly sufficient to stir and agitate the deepest springs of her nature. If it had been herself, or even her father, who was far dearer to her than herself, that had received some severe personal injury, she could not have been more concerned than she was for him. The longer she thought of it, and the more she perplexed herself with conjectures on his fate, the more deeply and painfully interesting did the subject become; and, for the first time in her life, she felt time a burthen, and wished to anticipate the morrow.