He took her hand in his, and clasping it protectingly, he closed his
eyes and fell asleep.
She sat watching the little fire, and brooding almost to insanity over
the strange revolution that a few hours had made in her life, driving
her so suddenly from her own hereditary manor-house, her home of wealth
and honor and safety, out into the perilous wilderness, a fugitive from
the law.
Yet not once did Sybil's imagination take in the extreme horror of her
position. She thought that she had been brought away by her husband to
be saved from the affront of an arrest, and the humiliation of a few
days imprisonment. That anything worse than this could happen to her,
she never even dreamed. But even this to the pure, proud Sybil would
have been almost insupportable mortification and misery. To escape all
this she was almost willing to incur the charge of having fled from
justice, and to endure the hardships of a fugitive's life.
And oh! through all there was one consolation so great, that it was
enough to compensate for all the wretchedness of her position. She was
assured of her husband's love, beyond all possibility of future doubt.
He was by her side, never to leave her more!
This was enough! She closed her hand around the beloved hand that held
hers, and felt a strange peace and joy, even in the midst of her exile
and danger.
Perhaps in this stillness she slumbered a while, for when she lifted her
head, the chapel, that had been dark before, but for the gleaming of the
little fire, was now dimly filled with the gray light of dawn.
She saw the shapes of the pointed windows against the background of
heavy shadows and pale lights, and she knew that day was coming. She did
not stir from the spot, lest she should wake her husband, whose hand
held hers. All was still in the chapel, so still that even the faint
sweet sounds of wakening nature could be heard--the stirring of the
partridge in her cover, the creeping of the squirrel from her hole, the
murmur of the little brook, the rustle of the leaves, and, farther off,
the deep thunder of the cascade, and the detonating echoes of the
mountains.
Sybil sat motionless, and almost breathless, lest she should disturb her
beloved sleeper. But the next moment she could scarcely forbear
screaming aloud; for there passed along the wall before her a figure
that, even in the dim light, she recognized as the strange visitant of
the preceding day. It came from the direction of the altar, and glided
past each of the four windows and vanished through the door. When Sybil
had repressed her first impulse to scream, self-control was easy, so she
sat quietly holding her husband's hand, though much amazed by what she
had again seen.