They waited, however, longer than they expected: three, four o'clock came, and no tidings arrived. The moments, notwithstanding expectation, flew more calmly than might have been imagined. Lord Dewry, although he knew that there were few subjects on which he could speak with Colonel Manners without meeting feelings and opinions different from any that he now dared to entertain, knew also that there was one topic, and that one very near to his heart at the moment, on which he might discourse at ease. That topic was his son; and on that--with all his feelings softened, with every asperity done away, and with the pure natural welling forth of parental affection and grief over his deep loss--on that he conversed during the greater part of the night, effacing from the memory of his companion the rude and disagreeable impression which their first interviews had caused, and leaving little but grief, and sympathy, and regret. CHAPTER II. From sunset till about nine o'clock there had been a light refreshing rain--not one of those cold autumnal pours which leave the whole world dark, and drenched, and dreary, but the soft falling of light pellucid drops, that scarcely bent the blades of grass on which they rested, and through which, ever and anon, the purple of the evening sky, and--as that faded away--the bright glance of a brilliant star, might be seen amid the broken clouds. Towards nine, however, the vapours that rested upon the eastern uplands became tinged with light; and, as if gifted with the power of scattering darkness from her presence, forth came the resplendent moon, while the dim clouds grew pale and white as she advanced, and, rolling away over the hills, left the sky all clear. It required scarcely a fanciful mind to suppose that--in the brilliant shining of the millions of drops which hung on every leaf and rested on every bough--in the glistening ripple of the river that rolled in waves of silver through the plain--in the checkered dancing of the light and shadow through the trees, and in the sudden brightening up of every object throughout the scene which could reflect her beams--it required scarcely a fanciful mind to suppose that the whole world was rejoicing in the soft splendour of that gentle watcher of the night, and gratulating her triumph over the darkness and the clouds.