“You have Sir Henry’s orders to lay these before the king?” said Hildebrand.

“I have,” replied the envoy.

“Then hasten to court, and so good speed.  Stay—­when you meet Sir Henry Fairfax, offer him an old man’s sympathy and condolence.  Break the matter to him tenderly—­and when he returns—­I say no more.  Away, thy mission hath need of despatch.”

The soldier made a slight inclination of the head as he departed.

Hildebrand Wentworth sat down to reap the fruits of his villany—­a harvest of his own planting.  The full fruition of it he now seemed ready to enjoy; but days and weeks passed by, and still found him feverish and anxious.  The fate of the children—­whether the work of destruction had or had not been accomplished—­was still to him a matter of uncertainty.  He had often sent in search of the ruffians, but they had not been seen at their usual haunts.  Guilt whispered that all was not complete.  Restless and oppressed by undefined and terrible apprehensions, he resolved to end his doubts, and, if possible, procure an interview.  He expected to obtain some clue to their procedings by a visit to the tower.

It was not far from the close of a bright summer’s day when he gained the rude bridge below the waterfall.  He shuddered as he looked on the narrow trunk and the ever-tossing gulf beneath.  The blackness of darkness was upon his spirit, and he ran as if some demon had pursued him, climbing with almost breathless haste the steep and winding staircase that gave access from the bridge to the ruined fortress above.

From the platform a narrow ledge of rock led to the ditch, now dry, and nearly filled with fragments from the ruins.  He passed the tottering arch of the portcullis;—­long weeds choked up the entrance, waving drearily as the light breeze went over them.  Hildebrand heard not the moan of the coming blast.  Evening approached, and the thousand shadows haunted him,—­grim spectres that crossed his path, crowding upon him with anger and menace.  From a ruined doorway he ascended a narrow stair, and had penetrated far into the interior of that part of the castle which, in some measure, remained entire, when, for the first time, he seemed startled into a consciousness of his situation.  It was an appalling scene of solitude and decay.  The realities, to which he almost instantaneously awoke, might have awed a less guilty spirit than that which inhabited the bosom of Hildebrand Wentworth.  A long gallery, supported by huge pillars, terminated in the distance by a long and narrow oriel.  On each side, broken but richly-variegated windows threw down a many-tinted light, which, oppressed by the dark and caverned arches, gave a strange and mysterious character to the grotesque reflections hovering on the floor.  Narrow streams of light flitted across the dense vapours, visible only in their gleam.  Involuntarily did Hildebrand pass on:  impelled as if by some unseen but resistless