He tried to think that he was angry with his cousin for having given Mistress Malvine pain, with having been guilty of sacrilege, but he was too truthful in his dealings with himself to admit that these were the springs of the bitterness within. Suddenly he looked up with a start, and saw Bessie before him, observing him with sympathetic distress. His pale forehead was covered with sweat-drops, and his long, thin hands were trembling. They had been clasped, the one on the other, on the altar-stone, and Luke's brow had rested on them, his face downward; thus he had not seen Bessie when she approached. "What is it, Luke?" she said, in kindly tones, full of commiseration. "Are you ill, dear cousin?" He looked at her somewhat vacantly for a moment, gathering his senses together. As in bodily pain, after a paroxysm, the mind remains distraught for a moment, and is unable to throw itself outward, so it is with mental pain to an even greater degree. As Bessie spoke, Luke seemed to be brought, or to bring himself, by an effort, out of a far-off world into that in which Bessie stood surrounded by the old chapel walls, hung with hartstongue leaves, still green, untouched by winter frost. "What are you suffering from?" she asked, and seated herself at his side. "It is nothing, cousin," he answered, and shook his head to shake away the thoughts that had held him. "It is indeed something," she said, gently; "I know it is; I see it in your white and streaming face." She took his hand in hers. "I know it from your cold hand. Luke, you have had no one but me to talk to of your troubles in boyhood, and I had none but you to tell of my little girlish vexations. Shall we be the same now, and confide in each other?" O, false Bessie! knowing she was false, as she said this. The keen eye of her Aunt Magdalen had seen what Bessie supposed was hidden from every one, that she loved her cousin Luke. But to Luke would that secret assuredly never be entrusted. It was to be a one-sided confidence. "Are you ill? Are you in bodily pain?" she asked. He shook his head--not now to shake away thought, but in negative. He passed his disengaged hand and sleeve over his brow, and was at once composed. "I am sorry you saw me like this, Bessie. I thought no one would come in here." "I have come to see Urith, after last night. I promised her I would come some time, and I thought that I would ask if she were quite well, for the day was to her long and trying." "Do not go on there now," said Luke gently, releasing his hand. "There has something happened. You have not heard, but it will be noised everywhere shortly, and the shock has been too much for Mistress Malvine; she has fallen into a fit." "Then I had better go on, cousin; I may be of help to Urith."