The person appealed to stood for some moments like a statue, her eyes protruding from their sockets, as if a tenant of the grave indeed stood before her--her hand at length slowly rose from her side and wandered through the vacant air as if she would have submitted the spectre to the test of feeling--imperfectly measuring the distance however between her own person and the object sought, it fell again powerless by her side. Her lips moved as if she were in the act of holding a conversation with the being who had addressed her, but no sound issued from them. The pupils of her eyes were painfully distended, and their whole expression wild and bewildered. At length her chest began to heave convulsively, when she made a wild and desperate effort to rush upon the object of her gaze, but fell prostrate on the floor before she had attained half the distance between them. As she fell she cried in the most piteous accents, "Charles! Charles!" and then swooned away. Charles Dudley, who had till now assisted Bacon in supporting his fainting bride, resigned his charge to Mr. Harrison and ran to Mrs. Fairfax, supposing himself to be the person thus piteously apostrophized. He took the fallen lady in his arms and raised her partly from the floor, but no symptoms of returning animation were visible. While he thus supported her head upon one knee, kneeling upon the other, assisted by the clergyman and friends, and Bacon and Mr. Harrison supporting Virginia, who was in little better condition, a tumultuous crowd rushed in at the door, headed by Sir William Berkley himself, exclaiming to his minions, "Tear him from the altar! tear the upstart from the altar." But as he ran with his drawn sword towards the pulpit, something in the attitude and expression of the various parties at once arrested his hand and voice. There is a power of expression in deep and irremediable sorrow which cannot be looked upon without emotion. Boisterous and outrageous as Sir William Berkley had entered the chapel, his fierce nature was instantly subdued by the appearance of his sister-in-law and her daughter. The crowd which followed were instinctively awed into silence by the same powerful and speaking appeals. When the announcement of the lawful cause which prevented the consummation of the union first fell upon Bacon's ear, his head sank upon his breast, and although he mechanically clasped Virginia round the waist, as he felt her clinging to him, and sinking at his side; he stood stupefied with horror, holding up his lifeless burden, entirely enable to think or act. His habitual and superstitious reverence for every thing uttered by the Recluse, induced him to receive the first impression of his words unchallenged even in his own mind.