"Oh, what is this new feeling that stirs within me?" continued Walter, in a half musing voice. "It seems as if your face bore the long remembered features of some kind friend or dear relative. Like a gleam of sunshine through a mist, they come back to me from the obscurity of the past like those of one whom--but, ah! whither is my enthusiasm carrying me? Dear madam, once more a thousand thanks, for now I must leave, and shall never see you more, but your kindness will ever be remembered by Walter Fenton with gratitude and love."
"Fenton!" said the Ursuline, putting back his hair, and tenderly surveying his emaciated features, "I once had a dear though humble friend of that name, and my heart yearns to thee for her sake. But wherefore this hurry to depart? Your wound?--"
"I know not where I am, lady, and should any of the Statholder's people come this way I should assuredly be shot."
"Then, in the name of all that is blessed, away! The fires of the French camp are still visible, and you may gain it ere daybreak."
This passed in French, but the boor understood it; his eyes twinkled, and knocking the ashes from his pipe he slowly stuck it in his leathern cap and stole out unperceived.
"And what will be the fate of this poor daughter of the brave Mackay, for everywhere the French are swarming around us?"
"Through a lady of the house of Nassau, who belongs to our now, alas! ruined convent, I will see her consigned to the care of her father's best friend, William of Orange."
"'Tis fortunate. It reminds me of what I scarcely dare to ask. She called you by the name of my bitterest enemy--Clermistonlee," said Walter, biting his lip; "Clermistonlee, who has been my rival and the bane of my existence. Oh, madam, what terrible mystery is concealed under this Ursuline habit!"
As Walter spoke the blood came and went in the faded face of the trembling recluse. One moment, when fired by animation, her features seemed almost beautiful, and the next they were withered, rigid, and aged.
"Mr. Fenton," faltered the nun--"Mr. Fenton, for so I presume you are named?"
"I am Sir Walter Fenton, lady, by the King's grace."
"My heart warms, Sir Walter, to that dear native land which I shall never behold again, and in a moment of such weakness I revealed myself to that poor fugitive girl, whom fate so happily threw under my protection, when the confederates were defeated and dispersed----. You know him then, this wicked man, to whom fate in an evil hour gave me as a wife. Oh, Randal! Randal! --------. Let me not recall in bitterness the burning thoughts of years long passed and gone--thoughts which I have long since learned to suppress, or endure with calmness and resignation."