The moment she was able to speak he urged
her to proceed,--and while she feebly attempted to obey him, he assured
her, her strength was perfectly recovered, and that the place they had
to reach was but a few paces distant. Isidora struggled on. Their path
now lay up the ascent of a steep hill,--they left the murmur of the
stream, and the sighing of trees, behind them,--the wind, too, had sunk,
but the night continued intensely dark,--and the absence of all sound
seemed to Isidora to increase the desolateness of the scene. She wished
for something to listen to beside her impeded and painful respiration,
and the audible beatings of her heart. As they descended the hill on the
other side, the murmuring of the waters became once more faintly
audible; and this sound she had longed to hear again, had now, amid the
stillness of the night, a cadence so melancholy, that she almost wished
it hushed again. “Thus always, to the unhappy, the very fulfilment of their morbid
wishings becomes a source of disappointment, and the change they hoped
for is desirable only as it gives them cause to long for another change. In the morning they say, Would to God it were evening!--Evening
comes,--and in the evening they say, Would to God it were morning! But
Isidora had no time to analyse her feelings,--a new apprehension struck
her,--and, as she could well guess from the increasing speed of Melmoth,
and head thrown backward impatiently, and often, it had probably reached
him too. A sound they had been for some time watching, (without
communicating their feelings to each other), became every moment more
distinct. It was the sound of a human foot, evidently pursuing them,
from the increasing quickness of its speed, and a certain sharpness of
tread, that irresistibly gave the idea of hot and anxious pursuit. Melmoth suddenly paused, and Isidora hung trembling on his arm. Neither
of them uttered a word; but Isidora’s eyes, instinctively following the
slight but fearful waving of his arm, saw it directed towards a figure
so obscure, that it at first appeared like a spray moving in the misty
night,--then was lost in darkness as it descended the hill,--and then
appeared in a human form, as far as the darkness of the night would
permit its shape to be distinguishable. It came on--its steps were more
and more audible, and its shape almost distinct.--Then Melmoth suddenly
quitted Isidora, who, shivering with terror, but unable to utter a word
that might implore him to stay, stood alone, her whole frame trembling
almost to dissolution, and her feet feeling as if she were nailed to the
spot where she stood. What passed she knew not. There was a short and
darkened struggle between two figures,--and, in this fearful interval,
she imagined she heard the voice of an ancient domestic, much attached
to her, call on her, first in accents of expostulation and appeal, then
in choaked and breathless cries for help--help--help!--Then she heard a
sound as if a heavy body fell into the water that murmured below.--It
fell heavily--the wave groaned--the dark hill groaned in answer, like
murderers exchanging their stilled and midnight whispers over their work
of blood--and all was silent. Isidora clasped her cold and convulsed
fingers over her eyes, till a whispering voice, the voice of Melmoth,
uttered, “Let us hasten on, my love.”--“Where?” said Isidora, not
knowing the meaning of the words she uttered.--“To the ruined monastery,
my love,--to the hermitage, where the holy man, the man of your faith,
shall unite us.”--“Where are the steps that pursued us?” said Isidora,
suddenly recovering her recollection.--“They will pursue you no
more.”--“But I saw a figure.”--“But you will see it no more.”--“I heard
something fall into that stream--heavily--like a corse.”--“There was a
stone that fell from the precipice of the hill--the waters splashed, and
curled, and whitened round it for a moment, but they have swallowed it
now, and appear to have such a relish for the morsel, that they will not
be apt to resign it.”

“In silent horror she proceeded, till Melmoth, pointing to a dusky and
indefinite mass of what, in the gloom of night, bore, according to the
eye or the fancy, the shape of a rock, a tuft of trees, or a massive and
unlighted building, whispered, “There is the ruin, and near it stands
the hermitage,--one moment more of effort,--of renewed strength and
courage, and we are there.” Urged by these words, and still more by an
undefinable wish to put an end to this shadowy journey,--these
mysterious fears,--even at the risk of finding them worse than verified
at its termination, Isidora exerted all her remaining strength, and,
supported by Melmoth, began to ascend the sloping ground on which the
monastery had once stood. There had been a path, but it was now all
obstructed by stones, and rugged with the knotted and interlaced roots
of the neglected trees that had once formed its shelter and its grace. “As they approached, in spite of the darkness of the night, the ruin
began to assume a distinct and characteristic appearance, and Isidora’s
heart beat less fearfully, when she could ascertain, from the remains of
the tower and spire, the vast Eastern window, and the crosses still
visible on every ruined pinnacle and pediment, like religion triumphant
amid grief and decay, that this had been a building destined for sacred
purposes. A narrow path, that seemed to wind round the edifice,
conducted them to a front which overlooked an extensive cemetery, at the
extremity of which Melmoth pointed out to her an indistinct object,
which he said was the hermitage, and to which he would hasten to intreat
the hermit, who was also a priest, to unite them. “May I not accompany
you?” said Isidora, glancing round on the graves that were to be her
companions in solitude.--“It is against his vow,” said Melmoth, “to
admit a female into his presence, except when obliged by the course of
his duties.” So saying he hasted away, and Isidora, sinking on a grave
for rest, wrapt her veil around her, as if its folds could exclude even
thought. In a few moments, gasping for air, she withdrew it; but as her
eye encountered only tomb-stones and crosses, and that dark and
sepulchral vegetation that loves to shoot its roots, and trail its
unlovely verdure amid the joints of grave-stones, she closed it again,
and sat shuddering and alone. Suddenly a faint sound, like the murmur of
a breeze, reached her,--she looked up, but the wind had sunk, and the
night was perfectly calm. The same sound recurring, as of a breeze
sweeping past, made her turn her eyes in the direction from which it
came, and, at some distance from her, she thought she beheld a human
figure moving slowly along on the verge of the inclosure of the
burial-ground.