Weeping, trembling, and praying, the unfortunate lady dressed herself with sensations how different from the days in which she was wont to decorate herself in all the pride of conscious beauty!  She endeavoured to delay the completing her dress as long as she could, until, terrified by the impatience of Varney, she was obliged to declare herself ready to attend them.

When they were about to move, the Countess clung to Foster with such an appearance of terror at Varney’s approach that the latter protested to her, with a deep oath, that he had no intention whatever of even coming near her.  “If you do but consent to execute your husband’s will in quietness, you shall,” he said, “see but little of me.  I will leave you undisturbed to the care of the usher whom your good taste prefers.”

“My husband’s will!” she exclaimed.  “But it is the will of God, and let that be sufficient to me.  I will go with Master Foster as unresistingly as ever did a literal sacrifice.  He is a father at least; and will have decency, if not humanity.  For thee, Varney, were it my latest word, thou art an equal stranger to both.”

Varney replied only she was at liberty to choose, and walked some paces before them to show the way; while, half leaning on Foster, and half carried by him, the Countess was transported from Saintlowe’s Tower to the postern gate, where Tider waited with the litter and horses.

The Countess was placed in the former without resistance.  She saw with some satisfaction that, while Foster and Tider rode close by the litter, which the latter conducted, the dreaded Varney lingered behind, and was soon lost in darkness.  A little while she strove, as the road winded round the verge of the lake, to keep sight of those stately towers which called her husband lord, and which still, in some places, sparkled with lights, where wassailers were yet revelling.  But when the direction of the road rendered this no longer possible, she drew back her head, and sinking down in the litter, recommended herself to the care of Providence.

Besides the desire of inducing the Countess to proceed quietly on her journey, Varney had it also in view to have an interview with Lambourne, by whom he every moment expected to be joined, without the presence of any witnesses.  He knew the character of this man, prompt, bloody, resolute, and greedy, and judged him the most fit agent he could employ in his further designs.  But ten miles of their journey had been measured ere he heard the hasty clatter of horse’s hoofs behind him, and was overtaken by Michael Lambourne.

Fretted as he was with his absence, Varney received his profligate servant with a rebuke of unusual bitterness.  “Drunken villain,” he said, “thy idleness and debauched folly will stretch a halter ere it be long, and, for me, I care not how soon!”