Matilda coloured deeply at something in this speech, and her cousin inveighed loudly against Emma’s resolution.  ’Ah, my dear lady Eleanor,’ replied she, ’I have to-day witnessed what I cannot but judge a supernatural visitation, and to what end can it call me but to give myself to the altar?  That peasant who guided me to Baddow through the Park of Danbury, the same who appeared before me at different times and in different forms during that eventful journey—­that youth, whose features are imprinted on my memory, is the very individual forester who this day rescued us in the forest.  I cannot be mistaken; and, connecting these marvellous appearances with the spectre which I saw while at Gay Bowers, I cannot resist the conviction that Heaven has permitted my guardian angel to assume mortal shape for my relief and protection.’

The fair cousins, after exchanging looks which implied a fear that her mind was wandering, answered her in soothing terms, and finally prevailed upon her to accompany them to the banqueting-hall.  Here the first person they encountered was the Baron Fitzosborne of Diggswell, now divested of his armour, at the sight of whom the Lady Emma changed colour, and exclaiming, ’It is the same!’ sunk senseless into the arms of Matilda.

‘She is bewildered by the terrors of the day,’ said Eleanor;’ and we have done ill in obliging her to descend.’

’And I,’said Fitzosborne, ’have done madly in presenting before her one whose presence must recall moments the most alarming in her life.’

While the ladies supported Emma from the hall, Lord Boteler and Saint Clere requested an explanation from Fitzosborne of the words he had used.

‘Trust me, gentle lords,’ said the Baron of Diggswell, ’ye shall have what ye demand when I learn that Lady Emma Darcy has not suffered from my imprudence.’

At this moment Lady Matilda, returning, said that her fair friend, on her recovery, had calmly and deliberately insisted that she had seen Fitzosborne before, in the most dangerous crisis of her life.

‘I dread,’ said she, ’her disordered mind connects all that her eye beholds with the terrible passages that she has witnessed.’

‘Nay,’ said Fitzosborne, ’if noble Saint Clere can pardon the unauthorized interest which, with the purest and most honourable intentions, I have taken in his sister’s fate, it is easy for me to explain this mysterious impression.’

He proceeded to say that, happening to be in the hostelry called the Griffin, near Baddow, while upon a journey in that country, he had met with the old nurse of the Lady Emma Darcy, who, being just expelled from Gay Bowers, was in the height of her grief and indignation, and made loud and public proclamation of Lady Emma’s wrongs.  From the description she gave of the beauty of her foster-child, as well as from the spirit of chivalry, Fitzosborne became interested in her fate.  This interest was deeply enhanced when, by a bribe