Hildebrand was gone. On him, indeed, if the past could be relied on, he might have placed dependence; but he was beyond recall. It might have been so ordered wilfully. Hildebrand, with all his seeming honesty, might be a malignant impostor, suborned to betray him to the Government; and, at this momentous juncture, possibly absented himself with a perfect foreknowledge of the evil his absence would occasion. But, no! the thought wronged him! it could not be!
He thought of his daughter seeking to effect his deliverance. He fancied her, under the prompture of affection, throwing off the reserve and timidity of her nature, and pushing to his aid through all the shuffling influences of the world. He saw her submit to the frown of scornful authority; he observed her suing the interference of the powerful courtier; and he traced her, at the last, to her own chamber, supplicating the protection of her patron saint, or the countenance and support of the blessed Virgin. As he pursued the imagined picture, he marked her pale countenance, her pensive eyes, and her still bosom; and though the surface was all placid, though her sweet disposition revealed no shade of impatience, he knew how deeply she was stirred, and that her heart was bursting.
The following day, he learned that, in conformity with his expectations, Evaline had sought access to him, but had been denied. He would have written to her; but the gaoler, in a surly tone, informed him that this would not be permitted. He remonstrated; but, wrapped in the arrogance of authority, the gaoler made him no reply, but passed in silence from the cell, and secured the door behind him.
Sir Edgar now contemplated his situation in its worst terrors. He was like one in his grave, shut out from the world, and cut off, in every individual relation, from his suffering child! What might not happen to her during their separation, and he, walled in that chamber, not even hear of it! How might she not pine, how might she not be oppressed, or how insulted; and no one be nigh to bid her be comforted!
His own troubles, for which he had furnished no provocation, had made him violent; but in contemplating the affliction of his daughter, exposed to all the contumely of the unfeeling world, he was subdued. In _her_ loneliness, he saw no resource; and as he fancied her struggling with her fate, alone and unfriended, and without one certain auxiliary, his eyes filled with tears.