His voice had changed during the last words into a growl of savage menace, and his forehead was black and furrowed with passion.

It might have been his own excited fancy, or the passing just then of a light cloud over the moon; but, for an instant, he thought he saw her steady lip quiver and tremble.  If so, be very sure it was not fear which caused the emotion, though even that the circumstances might have excused; rather, I think, it was a pang of self-reproach—­a consciousness of having acted unwisely, though for the best; perhaps, too, the stubbornness of the heart she had ruled once—­so strong and proud even in its abasement—­was congenial to her own besetting sin:  she liked the fierce threat better than the cool sarcasm.  At any rate, she answered more gently than she had yet spoken.

“I believe you.  But you know me better than to think a threat would influence me.  Yet you need not fear my ever again trusting this world with my happiness.  You will be very sorry hereafter for some things you have said to-night.  Ask yourself—­if I had loved you, as you seem to have expected, better than my own soul, would the result have been different?  It is too late now to say any thing but—­farewell.  Will you not say it, as I do, kindly, or at least not in anger—­Guy?”

She paused between the two last words, and their imploring accent was almost piteous.  There must have been a strange fascination about Livingstone, for, saint as she was, no other living creature would have won such a concession from the Christian charity of Constance Brandon.

Had Guy spoken then, as he ought to have done, I believe all might have been amended; but an angry devil was busy within him, and would not let go his prey; he stood with his black brows downcast, and with folded arms, never seeming to notice the slender fingers that sought to touch his hand.  True it is that nothing makes a man so unforgiving as the consciousness of having inflicted a bitter wrong.  He heard a sigh, heavy and despairing as Francesca’s when her dying prayer was spurned, a light shadow flitted across the streak of moonlit grass, and, when he raised his head, he was left alone, like Alp on the sea-shore, to judge the battle between a remorseful conscience and a hardened heart.

Livingstone was seen no more that night; Constance glided in alone, and her absence had been scarcely noticed.  During the short time that she remained, no one could have guessed from her face that her heart was broken, any more than did Napoleon that the aid-de-camp who brought the news of Lannes’ victory had been almost cut in two by a grape-shot.

I speak it diffidently, with the fear of the divine voice of the people before my eyes, as is but fitting in these equalizing days, when territories, the title to which is possession immemorial, are being plucked away acre by acre, and hereditary privileges mined one by one; but it seems to me, in this, perhaps, solitary attribute, “the brave old houses” still keep their pre-eminence.