There was breathless silence in a moment, and every eye was eagerly turned in the same direction. A small dark object appeared aloft, floating far, far higher than wing of bird ever could soar! Who can describe the intensity of the agonizing gaze fixed by father—sister—wife, upon that little distant ball? Arms were wildly stretched towards it, but not a word was uttered, scarce a breath was drawn while it yet remained in sight. Even when it had disappeared, the upwards-gazing group seemed almost as if transfixed into stone; till Bardon, with rough kindness, attempted to draw Annabella back into the cottage, muttering, “I feel for you, from my soul I do!” “Feel for me!” exclaimed the countess, shrinking from his touch with an expression of horror, her pent-up anguish finding vent in passionate upbraiding; “you who led me to this abyss of misery, you who roused up my accursed pride, you who made me write words which I would now only too gladly blot out with my heart’s blood! But for you I might have listened to truth; but for you I might never have left the true friends to whom I turn in my agony now! Oh, may God forgive you,” she added wildly,—“God help me to forgive you, but never, never enter my presence—never let me behold you again!” And so they parted, the tempter and the tempted—the countess to return to the vicarage with her almost heart-broken companions, Dr. Bardon to brood in his solitary cottage over deep, unavailing regrets! In the dark abode of endless woe thus may bitter recrimination deepen the anguish of the lost, when some wretched soul recognises the author of his misery in one called on earth his friend, who had stirred up his evil passions, and pampered his fatal pride! CHAPTER XXIV. SOARING ABOVE PRIDE. “By grace divine my heart towards Thee draw, By due afflictions check presumptuous pride, With hope and love turn fell despair aside, And make my chief delight Thy holy law!” ROBERT TUDOR TUCKER. The great red sun, like a huge globe of fire, was sinking in the west,—I would have said the horizon, but that word gives the idea of a point nearly level with the eye, while the orb appeared far beneath them to the travellers in the _Eaglet_. The red light tinted with a fiery glow the lower hemisphere of the balloon, which was all that met the eye of the earl, for he had cautiously abstained for many hours from glancing downwards towards the earth.