Then, at the door, he turned to say, 'Remember, you would not hear.' He was gone, having left a thorn with Honor, in the doubt whether she ought not to have accepted his confidence; but her abstinence had been such a mortification both of curiosity and of hostility to the Charterises that she could not but commend herself for it. She had strong faith in the efficacy of trust upon an honourable mind, and though it was evident that Owen had, in his own eyes, greatly transgressed, she reserved the hope that his error was magnified by his own consciousness, and admired the generosity that refused to betray another. She believed his present suffering to be the beginning of that growth in true religion which is often founded on some shock leading to self-distrust. Alas! how many falls have been counted by mothers as the preludes to rising again, like the clearing showers of a stormy day. CHAPTER VIII Fearless she had tracked his feet To this rocky, wild retreat, And when morning met his view, Her mild glances met it too. Ah! your saints have cruel hearts, Sternly from his bed he starts, And with rude, repulsive shock, Hurls her from the beetling rock.--T. MOORE The deed was done. Conventionalities were defied, vaunts fulfilled, and Lucilla sat on a camp-stool on the deck of a steamer, watching the Welsh mountains rise, grow dim, and vanish gradually. Horatia, in common with all the rest of the womankind, was prostrate on the cabin floor, treating Cilly's smiles and roses as aggravations of her misery. Had there been a sharer in her exultation, the gay pitching and dancing of the steamer would have been charming to Lucy, but when she retreated from the scene of wretchedness below, she felt herself lonely, and was conscious of some surprise among the surviving gentlemen at her reappearance. She took out a book as a protection, and read more continuously than she had done since _Vanity Fair_ had come to the Holt, and she had been pleased to mark Honora's annoyance at every page she turned. But the July light faded, and only left her the poor amusement of looking over the side for the phosphorescence of the water, and watching the smoke of the funnel lose itself overhead. The silent stars and sparkling waves would have set Phoebe's dutiful science on the alert, or transported Honor's inward ear by the chant of creation, but to her they were of moderate interest, and her imagination fell a prey to the memory of the eyes averted, and hand withdrawn. 'I'll be exemplary when this is over,' said she to herself, and at length her head nodded till she dropped into a giddy doze, whence with a chilly start she awoke, as the monotonous jog and bounce of the steamer were exchanged for a snort of arrival, among mysterious lanes of sparkling lights apparently rising from the waters.