“I have followed your steps, dearest Alicia, from the moment I received your letter.  We are now in Scotland-in this blessed land of liberty.  Everything is arranged; the clergyman is now in waiting; and in five minutes you shall be my own beyond the power of fate to sever us.”

Too much agitated to reply, Alicia wept in silence; and in the delight of once more beholding him she had thought never more to behold, forgot, for a moment, the duty she had imposed upon herself.  But the native energy of her character returned.  She raised her head, and attempted to withdraw from the encircling arms of her cousin.

“Never until you have vowed to be mine!  The clergyman—­the carriage—­everything is in readiness.  Speak but the word, dearest.”  And he knelt at her feet.

At this juncture the door opened, and, pale with rage, her eyes flashing fire, Lady Audley stood before them.  A dreadful scene now ensued.  Sir Edmund disdained to enter into any justification of his conduct, or even to reply to the invectives of his mother, but lavished the most tender assiduities on Alicia; who, overcome more by the conflicts of her own heart than with alarm at Lady Audley’s violence, sat the pale and silent image of consternation.

Baffled by her son’s indignant disregard, Lady Audley turned all her fury on her niece; and, in the most opprobrious terms that rage could invent, upbraided her with deceit and treachery—­accusing her of making her pretended submission instrumental to the more speedy accomplishment of her marriage.  Too much incensed to reply, Sir Edmund seized his cousin’s hand, and was leading her from the room.

“Go, then—­go, marry her; but first hear me swear, solemnly swear”—­ and she raised her hand and eyes to heaven—­“that my malediction shall be your portion!  Speak but the word, and no power shall make me withhold it!”

“Dear Edmund!” exclaimed Alicia, distractedly, “never ought I to have allowed time for the terrifying words that have fallen from Lady Audley’s lips; never for me shall your mother’s malediction fall on you.  Farewell for ever!” and, with the strength of desperation, she rushed past him, and quitted the room.  Sir Edmund madly followed, but in vain.  Alicia’s feelings were too highly wrought at that moment to be touched even by the man she loved; and, without an additional pang, she saw him throw himself into the carriage which he had destined for so different a purpose, and quit for ever the woman he adored.

It may easily be conceived of how painful a nature must have been the future intercourse betwixt Lady Audley and her niece.  The former seemed to regard her victim with that haughty distance which the unrelenting oppressor never fails to entertain towards the object of his tyranny; while even the gentle Alicia, on her part, shrank, with ill-concealed abhorrence, from the presence of that being whose stern decree had blasted all the fairest blossoms of her happiness.