Perhaps she loved him still? Perhaps the remembrance of him had called the guilty blush to her cheek? "Ah! if it is so!" he cried with angry vehemence, "he shall die. I will be revenged!"

"Vengeance! who talks of vengeance?" said a voice near, and, looking up, he saw Goody Grey leaning on her staff. Involuntarily he tendered her some halfpence.

"I want them not," she said. "It does not do for the blind to lead the blind."

"What mean you, woman? I am in no mood to be trifled with."

"Don't I know that?" she replied; "don't I know the bitterness of the heart? Do you think I have lived all these years and don't know where misery lies?"

"Where does it lie?" he asked.

"In your heart. Where it wouldn't have been if you hadn't been there;"

and she pointed in the direction of the Hall. "'Tis a gay meeting, and may be as sad a parting."

"Why so?" asked he again.

"Do the hawk and dove agree together in the same nest?"

"The dove would stand but a poor chance," said Robert.

"True." She turned upon her heel and went into the cottage, and seating herself in a low chair, began rocking it backwards and forwards, singing, in a kind of low, monotonous chant,

"When the leaves from the trees begin to fall Then the curse hangs darkly over the Hall."

"That must be now, then," said Robert, who had followed her in, "for the leaves are falling thick enough and fast enough in the wood."

"Darker and darker as the leaves fall thicker," she replied, "and darkest of all when they are on the ground, and the trees bare."

"What will happen then?"

"Ask your own heart: hasn't it anger, hatred, and despair in it? Did I not hear you call aloud for vengeance?"

"And what good can come of it?" continued she, seeing he made no reply; "like you, I've had all that in my heart, until curses loud and bitter have followed one after another, heaped on those who injured me, and yet I'm as far off from happiness as ever. I began to seek it when I was a young woman, and look! my hair is grey, and yet I have not found it; while the fierce anger, the strong will to return evil for evil, have faded from my spirit like the slow whitening of these grey hairs.

There's only despair now, and hatred for those, for _her_ who did me wrong."

"Do we all hate as mercilessly as this? I feel that a look, a word of love would turn my heart from bitterness."

"Then the injury has not been deep. I've lived here a lonely woman twenty years, and a look, a word, will sometimes call the fierce blood to my heart. When the injury is eternal and irremediable then the hate must be lasting too."

"The injured heart may forgive," said Vavasour.

"It may forgive. But forget its hate! its wrongs! its despair! Never, never," said she, fiercely.

"It may be so," said Robert, half aloud.

"May be so? It is so. Hate is a deadly enemy; don't let it creep into your heart; tear it out! cast it from you! for once you have it, it is yours for ever; even death cannot part it from you."

"I doubt that. We know that even a dying sinner's heart may repent and be softened; the thought that he is perishing from the earth nursing a deadly sin at his heart would do much; he would never dare die so."

"Prayers, the pleadings of an agonised, breaking heart may be vain--in vain--was vain, young man, for I tried it," replied Goody Grey, her voice suddenly changing from fierceness to mournful sadness.

"Surely there could not be a heart so hard, if you pleaded rightly."

"Don't tell me that!" she exclaimed, raising her voice, "don't tell me there was anything I might have done. Did I not kneel and pray? Did I not take back my curses and give blessings? Did I not plead my broken heart and withered youth? But death came, even as I knelt; the hate was too strong, and the words I panted to hear were unspoken. What have you to say to that?"

"Hope," replied Robert; "what you have done at a death bed, I have done during life, and been refused; death has come since, and I am seemingly as far off as ever; and yet I hope on."

"Hope on, hope ever," said she, sadly, "yes, that's all that's left me now, but it doesn't satisfy the cravings of my heart; never will!"

"Have you no relations? You must live but a lonely life here," said Robert.

"That is the only living thing that loves me," she replied, pointing to the parrot, sitting pluming his feathers. "He's been with me in joy and sorrow. Don't touch him; he is savage with strangers."

"Not with me," said Robert, smoothing his feathers gently.

"Then he knows friends from foes, or his heart's taken kindly to you like mine did, when I saw you with the bad pa.s.sions written in your face."

"I once had a bird like this," he replied, thoughtfully, "but it must be years ago, for I cannot recall to my recollection at this moment when it was."

He pa.s.sed from the cottage, while Goody Grey again rocked herself to and fro' and began her old song.

"When the leaves from the trees begin to fall Then the curse----"

The rest of the words were lost to his ear, but the sound of her voice was borne along by the breeze, and sounded mournfully and sadly as it swept through the leafless trees.

Robert thought much of Goody Grey as he walked homewards. Here was a woman whose very life had wasted away in the vain search for what for twenty years,--perhaps more,--had eluded her grasp. Would it be the same with him? Would years,--his life slip by, and the mystery of his birth be a mystery still? Would hope fade away, and he, like her, grow despairing in the end? He felt a strange interest in that lone, unloved woman, with nothing in the world to love but a bird. Then his thoughts reverted to his wife, and his love for her. Why had she married him if her heart was another's? Why had she done him this wrong? Why make not only herself, but him miserable for life? But could deceit dwell in so lovely a form as his wife's? only a month ago he would have staked his life; nay, his very love upon her truth. And now--now--

"Where are you going so fast, Robert? Are you walking for a wager? I have been vainly trying to come up with you for the last five minutes,"

said Amy, taking his arm.

"Have you been out walking without Bertie?" he said.

"Yes, I meant to have gone with you; and ran upstairs for my hat, when I saw you preparing to go out."

"Why did you not come then?"

"I was too late; when I came back you had disappeared, Miss Strickland said down the long avenue: so I followed, and went through the village, and home by the lane, but somehow I missed you."

"Miss Strickland was wrong. I went across the fields into the wood, as far as Mrs. Grey's cottage. What a singular being she is!"

"Have you never seen her until to-day?"

"Yes, several times, but never to speak to. She must have been very handsome in her youth."

"What, with that dark frown on her brow?"

"That has been caused from sorrow," replied Robert, "she has had some heavy, bitter trial to bear; besides that frown is not always there, once I noticed quite a softened expression steal over her face. I feel an interest in the old lady; she tells me she is alone in the world,--like myself. I feel alone sometimes."

"You, Robert!" said Amy, in a tone of sadness and reproach.