* * * * * Boyer, am I not in Valmont castle?--Did I not come hither to carry off the niece of Valmont? And was that bright vision the Sibella Valmont whom I have so traduced?--Hush! Walter! repeat not my crime, if thou hopest for peace in this world, or happiness in the next! It could not be her, her that I came in search of!--Yes, but it was her. Angel as she is in form, her heart is the heart of a mortal still. 'Oh, Clement!' said she, and, spreading one hand upon her heaving bosom, sighed deeply.--She addressed herself to that picture. 'Art thou safe, my love?--terrifying dreams disturb my rest!' She saw me not, for her back was toward me as she entered. 'Heaven preserve my Clement!' said she again after a pause. She would have continued thus soliloquizing, but I, to gain a view of her face, attempted to change my attitude. My cursed coat had somehow got entangled in the chair, and threw it against the table as I moved. She turned around; and I, as in the presence of a goddess, bowed lowly to the very ground. She then approached nearer; and my eyes retreated from the scrutiny with which she viewed me. The examination lasted more than a minute; and all that time I was racking my invention to find words to address her, but I might as well have been born dumb: I had neither articulation, nor sounds to articulate. 'Mark me, Sir,' said she, and I, like the idiot I had been describing her, bowed again: 'Mr. Valmont may bring you here; may make this castle my prison; but my will is free. I tell you, Sir, I am beyond your reach. Remember it, I am beyond your reach.'--And away she glided. '_Mr. Valmont may bring you here._' Why, who the devil could she take me for? I thought Mr. Valmont brought nobody here!--'_I am beyond your reach._' Say not so, sweet saint!--I would not have you now beyond my reach for a king's ransom. If she should alarm the house, Walter.----Hark!----No.--'Tis nothing.--she knew me: yet knew me not.--defied me: yet is a stranger to my purpose.--What can all this mean?--Ha! then it may be true, that this frightful place has deranged her intellects!--Certainly that is the case. She looked a lovely lunatic, wrapped up in a loose gown, her hair streaming at its length; and arisen, in the dead of night, to apostrophize to her own picture! Yet I am not deterred, Walter. I'll undertake her restoration. Expect me in London immediately. I unsay all. I would not yield her up to her uncle, no not for an hour! Is she returned to her bed, I wonder?--Oh! my moderation is given to the wind!--The time draws near!--I heard the clapping of distant doors.----I cannot write.--I can hardly breathe. * * * * *