“No, no, by Jove!” cried Crofton; “my Lord is in waiting, and I'm on duty.” While the groups now gathered together from the different parts of the garden, Lord Netherby joined Beauclerk, who awaited him in a distant alley, and soon after the youth was seen returning alone to the abbey. The time of bustle and leave-taking--that moment when many a false smile and merry speech ill conceals the secret sorrow--was come, and each after each spoke his farewell; and Lord Netherby, kindly pledging himself to make Lionel's peace at the Horse Guards for an extended absence of some days, thus conferred upon Lady Eleanor the very greatest of favors. “Our next meeting is to be in London, remember,” said the peer, in his blandest accents. “I stand pledged to show my countrymen that I have nothing extenuated in speaking of Irish beauty;--nay, Helen, it is my last time, forgive it.” “There they go,” said Darcy, as he looked after the retiring equipages. “Now, Eleanor, and my dear children, come along with me into the library. I have long been struggling against a secret sorrow; another moment would be more than I could bear.” They turned silently towards the abbey, none daring, even by a look, to interrogate him whose sad accents foreboded so much evil; yet as they walked they drew closer around him, and seemed even by that gesture to show that, come what might, they would meet their fortune boldly. Darcy moved on for some minutes sunk in thought; but as he ascended the wide steps of the terrace, appearing to read the motives of those who clung so closely to his side, he smiled sadly, and said, “Ay! I knew it well,--in weal or woe--together!” CHAPTER XXXII. “SAD DISCLOSURES.” The vicissitudes of life are never more palpably displayed before us than when the space of a few brief hours has converted the scene of festivity and pleasure into one of gloom and sorrow, when the same silent witnesses of our joy should be present at our affliction. Thus was it now in the richly adorned chambers of Gwynne Abbey, so lately filled with happy faces and resounding with pleasant voices,--all was silent. Iu the courtyard, but a day before crowded with brilliant equipages and gay horsemen, the long shadows lay dark and unbroken, and the plash of the fountain was the only sound in the stillness. Over that wide lawn no groups on foot or horseback were to be seen; the landscape was fair and soft to look upon; the mild radiance of a spring morning beamed on the water and the shore, the fresh budding trees, and the tall towers; and the passing traveller who might have stopped to gaze upon that princely dwelling and its swelling woods, might have thought it an earthly paradise, and that they who owned it must needs be above worldly cares and afflictions.