Lady Amabel came up to me. "My dear child," said she, "you look quite ill--come into the air. Mr Lyle, give Miss Daveney your arm." But I begged to withdraw for a little while, and Lady Amabel excused me. The library was the only room unoccupied on this festal night. A single lamp stood on the table. The windows of this room opened to that dark walk overshadowed by the mountain. Here there were no illuminations--no crowd of dancers. I extinguished the lamp, and sat down by the open window. Two figures were walking slowly up and down the avenue. They stepped a few paces beyond the shadow of the mountain, into the moonlit path. It was Mrs Rashleigh and Clarence Fairfax. She was talking vehemently; he was entreating her to be calm. I sat, transfixed; had a voice from the grave summoned me, I could not have obeyed. She was reproaching him for some imagined neglect. He told her that she fancied it. Now her tones were those of passion, vehement and imperious; he implored her, for her own sake, to restrain her wrath. It is impossible to relate to you all I saw and heard, as, statue-like, I leaned against the window--bitter imprecations were heaped on my own head. Clarence would have burst from her at this, but she cast herself upon his bosom, and clung there, pouring forth the most passionate expressions of love and regret. "Would he desert her? She should die! She only lived in his presence. He saw her gay and brilliant in society--Oh! if he knew the dark hours she passed without him." They moved slowly, close by the window; she was talking to him, with her head resting on his shoulder. She was speaking of her husband-- complaining of him--for Clarence uttered his name in an angry tone, and then whispering, "My poor Anna! and you suffered this for me!" folded her in his arms, and embraced her wildly. They were within a yard of me, and I dared not move. Icy cold were my hands, clasped together; my eyeballs burned and throbbed, but no tears came to their relief. I seemed to realise the sensation that Niobe must have felt on being turned to stone. They leaned against the window--some one approached--they started, and were moving on, when the angry voice of the outraged Mr Rashleigh arrested the steps of the guilty pair. The wretched woman screamed aloud, and clung to Clarence, who, on Mr Rashleigh raising his hand to strike him, received a blow on the arm he had lifted to ward it. It was Lyle who had thus brought about this terrible _esclandre_, though of this no one then was aware. It was he who, as the crowd moved to a refreshment tent, had put a slip of paper into Mr Rashleigh's hands, warning him of his wife's delinquency, and the scorn in which he was held for his contemptible indifference to her shamelessness. He was informed of her whereabouts at that instant.