“We have no evidence, I understand, that you are in the smallest degree connected with the enemies of this country; but as you have been found out of the king's highway, or, rather, on a by-path, which I must confess is frequently used by the people of the neighborhood, but which is nevertheless nothing but a by-path, it becomes no more than what self-preservation requires of us, to ask you a few such questions as I trust will be satisfactorily answered. To use your own nautical phrases, 'From whence came ye, pray?' and 'whither are ye bound?'” A low, deep voice replied: “From Sunderland, last, and bound, overland, to Whitehaven.” This simple and direct answer was hardly given, before the attention of the listeners was called to Alice Dunscombe, who uttered a faint shriek, and rose from her seat involuntarily, while her eyes seemed to roll fearfully, and perhaps a little wildly, round the room. “Are you ill, Miss Alice?” said the sweet, soothing tones of Cecilia Howard; “you are, indeed you are: lean on me, that I may lead you to your apartment.” “Did you hear it, or was it only fancy?” she answered, her cheek blanched to the whiteness of death, and her whole frame shuddering as if in convulsions; “say, did you hear it, too?” “I have heard nothing but the voice of my uncle, who is standing near you, anxious, as we all are, for your recovery from this dreadful agitation.” Alice still gazed wildly from face to face. Her eye did not rest satisfied with dwelling on those who surrounded her, but surveyed, with a sort of frantic eagerness, the figures and appearance of the three men, who stood in humble patience, the silent and unmoved witnesses of this extraordinary scene. At length she veiled her eyes with both her hands, as if to shut out some horrid vision, and then removing them, she smiled languidly, as she signed for Cecilia to assist her from the room. To the polite and assiduous offers of the gentlemen, she returned no other thanks than those conveyed in her looks and gestures; but when the sentinels who paced the gallery were passed, and the ladies were alone, she breathed a long, shivering sigh, and found an utterance. “'Twas like a voice from the silent grave!” she said, “but it could be no more than mockery. No, no, 'tis a just punishment for letting the image of the creature fill the place that should be occupied only with the Creator. Ah! Miss Howard, Miss Plowden, ye are both young--in the pride of your beauty and loveliness--but little do ye know, and less do ye dread, the temptations and errors of a sinful world.” “Her thoughts wander!” whispered Katherine, with anxious tenderness, “some awful calamity has affected her intellect!”