She bent
forwards for a moment, but her eyes, bright and piercing, still
recognized him in a moment. “Back!--back!”--exclaimed the stately ancestress, waving him
off with her withered hand--“Back!--profane not this floor with
another step!”--“Hear me, madam, for one moment--suffer me to
address you, even on my knees--I pay the homage to your rank and
relationship--misunderstand it not as an acknowledgement of guilt on my
part!”

“Mrs Ann’s features at this action underwent a slight contraction--a
short spasmodic affection. “Rise, Sir--rise,” she said--“and say what
you have to say--but utter it, Sir, at the door whose threshold you are
unworthy to tread.”

“John Sandal rose from his knees, and pointed instinctively as he rose
to the portrait of Sir Roger Mortimer, to whom he bore a striking
resemblance. Mrs Ann acknowledged the appeal--she advanced a few steps
on the oaken floor--she stood erect for a moment, and then, pointing
with a dignity of action which no pencil could embody to the portrait,
seemed to consider her attitude as a valid and eloquent answer--it
said--he to whose resemblance you point, and claim protection from,
never like you dishonoured these walls by an act of baseness--of
heartless treachery! Betrayer!--look to his portrait! Her expression had
in it something of the sublime--the next moment a strong spasm
contracted her features--she attempted to speak, but her lips no longer
obeyed her--she seemed to speak, but was not heard even by herself. She
stood for a moment before John Sandal in that rigid immoveable attitude
that says, “Advance not another step at your peril--insult not the
portraits of your ancestors--insult not their living representative, by
another step of intrusion!” As she spoke thus, (for her attitude spoke),
a stronger spasm contracted her features. She attempted to move--the
same rigid constriction extended to her limbs; and, waving her
prohibitory arm still, as if in defiance at once of the approach of
death and of her rejected kinsman, she dropt at his feet. * * * * * *

“She did not long survive the interview, nor did she ever recover the
use of speech. Her powerful intellect was, however, unimpaired; and to
the last she expressed herself most intelligibly by action, as
determined not to hear a word explanatory of Sandal’s conduct. This
explanation was therefore made to Margaret, who, though much shocked and
agitated at the first disclosure, seemed afterwards perfectly reconciled
to it. * * * * * * * *

“Shortly after the receipt of these letters, Elinor took a sudden, but
perhaps not singular resolution,--she determined to set out immediately
for Mortimer Castle. It was not her weariness of the withering life, the
αβιωτος βιος she lived at her Puritanic aunt’s--it was not the wish
to enjoy again the stately and splendid ceremonial of Mortimer Castle,
contrasted with the frugal fare and monastic rigour of the cottage in
Yorkshire--it was not even the wish for that change of place that
always flatters us with change of circumstance, as if we did not carry
our own hearts with us wherever we go, and might not therefore be sure
that an innate and eroding ulcer must be our companion from the Pole to
the Equator--it was not this, but a whisper half unheard, yet believed,
(just in proportion as it was inaudible and incredible), that murmured
from the bottom of her credulous heart, ‘Go--and _perhaps_’--

“Elinor set out on her journey, and after having performed it with fewer
difficulties than can be imagined, considering the state of the roads,
and the modes of travelling in the year 1667 or thereabouts, she arrived
in the vicinity of Mortimer Castle. It was a scene of reminiscence to
her,--her heart throbbed audibly as the carriage stopped at a Gothic
gate, through which there was a walk between two rows of lofty elms. She
alighted, and to the request of the servant who followed her, that he
might be permitted to shew her the way through a path entangled by the
intersecting roots of the trees, and dim with twilight, she answered
only by her tears. She waved him off, and advanced on foot and alone. She remembered, from the bottom of her soul, how she had once wandered
amid that very grove with John Sandal--how his smile had shed a richer
light on the landscape, than even the purple smile of the dying
day-light. She thought of that smile, and lingered to catch it amid the
rich and burning hues flung by the fading light on the many-tinted boles
of the ancient trees. The trees were there--and the light was there--but
his smile, that once eclipsed the sun-light, was there no longer! “She advanced alone--the lofty avenue of trees still retained its
magnificent depth of shade, and gorgeous colouring of trunk and leaf. She sought among them for that which she had once felt--and God and
nature alone are conscious of the agony with which we demand from them
the object which we are conscious was once consecrated to our hearts,
and which we now require of both in vain! God withholds,--and Nature
denies them! “As Elinor with trembling steps advanced towards the Castle, she saw the
funeral scutcheon which Mrs Margaret, in honour of her grand-aunt, had
caused to be affixed over the principal tower since her decease, with
the same heraldric decorum as if the last male of the Mortimer family
were extinct. Elinor looked up, and many thoughts rushed on her
heart.--“There is one departed,” she thought, “whose mind was always
fixed on glorious thoughts--the most exalted actions of humanity, or the
sublime associations of eternity! Her noble heart had room but for two
illustrious guests--the love of God, and the love of her country. They
tarried with her to the last, for they found the abode worthy of them;
and when they parted, the inmate found the mansion untenantable any
longer--the soul fled with its glorious visitors to heaven! My
treacherous heart welcomed another inmate, and how has he repaid its
hospitality?--By leaving the mansion in ruins!” As she spoke thus, she
approached the entrance of the Castle. “In the spacious hall she was received by Margaret Mortimer with the
embrace of rooted affection, and by John Sandal, who advanced after the
first enthusiasm of meeting was over, with that calm and brother-like
good-will, from which there was--nothing to be hoped. There was the same
heavenly smile, the same clasp of the hand, the same tender and almost
feminine expression of anxiety for her safety--even Margaret herself,
who must have felt, and who did feel the perils of the long journey, did
not enter into them with that circumstantiality, or appear to sympathize
with them so vividly, or, when the tale of toil and travel was told,
appear to urge the necessity of speedy retirement, with such solicitude
as did John Sandal. Elinor, faint and gasping, grasped the hands of
both, and by an involuntary motion locked both together.