"Back, back!" he exclaimed to the servants who were pressing round; they fell back, and he came up to me. "Hark ye, sir, instead of assuming a name to which you have no right----" The passion which had been burning within me all along, blazed out in uncontrollable fury. I started with a sudden energy out into the floor; dashed backwards and forwards through the room, stamping with indignation, while I asserted my honour, and demanded satisfaction; but the fire which had for a minute animated me failed; my tongue became confused and feeble; the whole scene whirled and flickered round me, and I sank exhausted, and in a burning fever, on a seat. Every one who has suffered fever knows what a fiery trance it is. How long mine had continued I could not guess; when the crisis came, it was favourable, and I awoke, cool and delighted, from a long sweet sleep. That scene I had already witnessed, of sunset through the room beyond, was again before me; the same grey and purple haze hung over the mountain, and the same rich sky from above lit up the river-reaches; the dim old room was warm in the mellow light; the folding-doors stood wide open, but on the steps where the marrer of the whole had stood before, lo! the radiance revelling through her hair; the rich light flushing warm through the outline of her face and neck; the sweet repose of satisfaction and conscious care beaming over her whole countenance; benign and beautiful stood Madeline O'More, her finger on her lips. "She, too, thinks me a spy," I muttered, in the bitterness of my heart, and hid my face upon the pillow. But who can describe my delight when I heard her well-remembered accents murmur beside me, "Oh no, believe me, indeed I do not!" I looked up. She was covered with blushes--I felt them reflected on my own cheek--there was a conscious pause. "Then you do believe that I am what I have told you?" I said at last. "O yes! but indeed you must forgive the error," she replied; and readily did I admit its justifiableness, when she went on to tell me that a friend had ridden a long journey to warn them against a person bearing my name, and answering to my appearance--an apostate from their own cause, and a noted spy, who, upon some vague information of their retreat, had set out with the intention of discovering and betraying them; and that their friend (in whom I at once recognised the priest I had seen her father conduct from the house) had left them but a few minutes before I arrived.