‘It is easy to talk so when you are not feeling,’ said Caterina, the tears flowing fast.  ’It is bad to bear now, whatever may come after.  But you don’t care about my misery.’

‘Don’t I, Tina?’ said Anthony in his tenderest tones, again stealing his arm round her waist, and drawing her towards him.  Poor Tina was the slave of this voice and touch.  Grief and resentment, retrospect and foreboding, vanished—­all life before and after melted away in the bliss of that moment, as Anthony pressed his lips to hers.

Captain Wybrow thought, ’Poor little Tina! it would make her very happy to have me.  But she is a mad little thing.’

At that moment a loud bell startled Caterina from her trance of bliss.  It was the summons to prayers in the chapel, and she hastened away, leaving Captain Wybrow to follow slowly.

It was a pretty sight, that family assembled to worship in the little chapel, where a couple of wax-candles threw a mild faint light on the figures kneeling there.  In the desk was Mr. Gilfil, with his face a shade graver than usual.  On his right hand, kneeling on their red velvet cushions, were the master and mistress of the household, in their elderly dignified beauty.  On his left, the youthful grace of Anthony and Caterina, in all the striking contrast of their colouring—­he, with his exquisite outline and rounded fairness, like an Olympian god; she, dark and tiny, like a gypsy changeling.  Then there were the domestics kneeling on red-covered forms,—­the women headed by Mrs. Bellamy, the natty little old housekeeper, in snowy cap and apron, and Mrs. Sharp, my lady’s maid, of somewhat vinegar aspect and flaunting attire; the men by Mr. Bellamy the butler, and Mr. Warren, Sir Christopher’s venerable valet.

A few collects from the Evening Service was what Mr. Gilfil habitually read, ending with the simple petition, ‘Lighten our darkness.’

And then they all rose, the servants turning to curtsy and bow as they went out.  The family returned to the drawing-room, said good-night to each other, and dispersed—­all to speedy slumber except two.  Caterina only cried herself to sleep after the clock had struck twelve.  Mr. Gilfil lay awake still longer, thinking that very likely Caterina was crying.

Captain Wybrow, having dismissed his valet at eleven, was soon in a soft slumber, his face looking like a fine cameo in high relief on the slightly indented pillow.

Chapter 3

The last chapter has given the discerning reader sufficient insight into the state of things at Cheverel Manor in the summer of 1788.  In that summer, we know, the great nation of France was agitated by conflicting thoughts and passions, which were but the beginning of sorrows.  And in our Caterina’s little breast, too, there were terrible struggles.  The poor bird was beginning to flutter and vainly dash its soft breast against the hard iron bars of the inevitable, and we see too plainly the danger, if that anguish should go on heightening instead of being allayed, that the palpitating heart may be fatally bruised.