God doeth all things well; that truth has calmed my heart, made my life serene and happy.” CHAPTER XX. THE LOVERS. “A brow of beautiful, yet earnest thought, A form of manly grace.” SIGOURNEY. “That fearful love which trembles in the eyes, And with a silent earthquake shakes the soul.” DRYDEN. They sat under the shed of the piazza at Heath Hall—Raymond and Hagar—in the same piazza that had been the stage of so many scenes of selfishness, tyranny, and violence—of weak resistance, or of weaker compliance—across the floor of which the long shadow of Withers had been thrown as he passed in his ghostly wooing of Sophie; before the steps of which the pale wanderer had paused to warn in her flight towards death—through which the corpse of the sinner, sufferer, and suicide, had been borne to the inquest—in which the declaration of love and despairing parting had occurred between Sophie Churchill and Augustus Wilde—through which Raymond had flown to pick up Hagar, when in maniac violence Mr. Withers had hurled her through the open window—lastly, through which the corpse of the poor lunatic had been carried, the shadow seeming to pass from the house at the same time. All was very quiet now. It was Spring, and the moon was shining down through the trellis work and vines, and the moonlight, agitated by the shadows of the leaves that quivered in the breeze, trembled on the floor. They sat together on the bench at one of the extremities of the piazza. Hagar sat erect—leaned back against the balustrade; her fingers were slightly clasped, and her fierce eyes burning into the opposite vines. Yet the wild girl was very gentle now; the brave girl timid; her venture was—not life and limb—that Hagar would at any time risk, with a kindling, not a smouldering cheek; her venture was—her affections!—that heart, once so keenly sensitive—that heart which in infancy had been stung and embittered until it had at last grown stiff as any other muscle under the action of any other bitter tonic poison! that among the forest rocks and streams had grown so healthy! so joyous! It was such a free, brave, leaping heart, that its prison-chest would scarce contain it!—it would leap, though, and soar to the clouds!—it did send its owner on horseback bounding over awful chasms, leaping five-barred gates, thundering down frightful descents, and sing with gladness when the feat was done! But now this jubilant heart was slowly trembling like a balloon in its descent to earth, or a wounded bird that slowly flapping its wings falls, and falls. Its wild liberty was going—gone. Yes, her liberty of thought and action was gone; no one ventured to advise, to reprove, to oppose the young mistress of Heath Hall; yet she felt reproof, opposition, powerfully.