Sick, dizzy, and with every faculty of my mind annihilated, I turned away from the horrid scene, and was again borne to my room.  I tried to give vent to my overcharged heart in tears; but the power was denied me, and I sank at once into that stupefaction which you have since remarked in me, and which has been increasing every hour.  What additional cause I have had for the indulgence of this confirmed despondency you are well acquainted with.  It is childish, it is unsoldierlike, I admit:  but, alas! that dreadful scene is eternally before my eyes, and absorbs my mind, to the exclusion of every other feeling.  I have not a thought or a care but for the fate that too certainly awaits those who are most dear to me; and if this be a weakness, it is one I shall never have the power to shake off.  In a word, Blessington, I am heart-broken.”

Captain Blessington was deeply affected; for there was a solemnity in the voice and manner of the young officer that carried conviction to the heart; and it was some moments before he could so far recover himself as to observe,—­

“That scene, Charles, was doubtless a heart-rending one to us all; for I well recollect, on turning to remark the impression made on my men when the wretched Ellen Halloway pronounced her appalling curse to have seen the large tears coursing each other over the furrowed cheeks of some of our oldest soldiers:  and if they could feel thus, how much more acute must have been the grief of those immediately interested in its application!”

“Their tears were not for the denounced race of De Haldimar,” returned the youth,—­“they were shed for their unhappy comrade—­they were wrung from their stubborn hearts by the agonising grief of the wife of Halloway.”

“That this was the case in part, I admit,” returned Captain Blessington.  “The feelings of the men partook of a mixed character.  It was evident that grief for Halloway, compassion for his wife, secret indignation and, it may be, disgust at the severity of your father, and sorrow for his innocent family, who were included in that denunciation, predominated with equal force in their hearts at the same moment.  There was an expression that told how little they would have pitied any anguish of mind inflicted on their colonel, provided his children, whom they loved, were not to be sacrificed to its accomplishment.”

“You admit, then, Blessington, although indirectly,” replied the young De Haldimar in a voice of touching sorrow, “that the consummation of the sacrifice is to be looked for.  Alas! it is that on which my mind perpetually lingers; yet, Heaven knows, my fears are not for myself.”

“You mistake me, dearest Charles.  I look upon the observations of the unhappy woman as the ravings of a distracted mind—­the last wild outpourings of a broken heart, turning with animal instinct on the hand that has inflicted its death-blow.”