On the evening of the second day after his departure from Morewick, Louis found himself clasped to the veteran bosom of Santa Cruz; ardently embraced by Ferdinand; and caressed with maternal fondness, by the enraptured Marchioness.

"We are come to live amongst you for a long time;" cried she, "to seek those blessings of health at Lindisfarne for my beloved Marcella, which her brother found so abundantly."

Louis assured her of the happiness such an intention would bring to his family; and he soon read in the looks of Ferdinand, that it was as a privileged lover, he was now returning to the feet of Alice. The present grief which Louis had in the depths of his heart, he hid there, and smiled his congratulations to the animated eyes of his friend.

"Our Marcella," said the Marquis, "is suffering under sorrow as well as illness. While I went to Rome on a mission of consequence to us all, I left her with my wife, under the care of my sister, the abbess of the Ursalines; and on my return, I found I had lost my sister by a sudden death; and that my daughter, from the shock, was reduced to the brink of the grave."

"But she is now out of danger, I trust?" replied Louis in a tone, which could not be mistaken.

"And a letter from you, was our first comfort!" was the inward response of the Marchioness, though her lips made no reply. She left that to the calmer reason of her husband.

The letter, her thoughts referred to, was from de Montemar to Ferdinand, in answer to one, wherein he enlarged on Marcella's changed wishes with regard to a monastic life. When Louis came to that subject, without being aware of the clearness with which his words unfolded his own heart, he wrote as follows:

"I begin to think my probationary conflicts, instead of confirming my spirit, have, in some cases at least, a contrary effect. I felt so much in reading your sister's wish to bury herself from all she has hitherto blessed with her virtues, that—I wish I could for ever be kept in ignorance of the time when she is really professed. At least, Ferdinand, do you refrain from telling it to me, and I shall not dread to open your letters."

Ferdinand shewed this paragraph to his mother. The lamp in his own soul had discovered sleeping love, in every unconscious line. The Marchioness had observed the powerful impression which de Montemar made on the memory of her daughter, when she first admired his filial enthusiasm in the Val del Uzeda. From that hour, her distaste, as well as her religious opinions, was adverse to a monastic vow. But when her awakened sensibility comprehended the feelings of her brother; though unconscious of the new principle within her, which pleaded his cause even against her own heart, she became willing to sacrifice herself for his happiness. In Barbary, as in Spain, she found nothing but what increased her admiration, even to reverence, in the devoted son of the misled Duke de Ripperda. And, being so devoted a son, it never crossed the pure heaven of her mind, that any idea of her, but as a sister of Mercy, could ever occur to his heart. She believed, that she also thought of him as a "thing enskied and sainted," and that his remembrance would be as innoxious to her peace, after they had separated for ever in this world, as that of the most lovely characters she had read of, who were now in the grave; but whose society would be one of her felicities in the life to come.

But she deceived herself. The sting was in her heart. She saw Louis de Montemar no more, but his image was ever before her, his words, his looks, his actions; and, finding the secret of her soul, in its anguish and her despair; she every hour urged her parents to shut her up from the world, which contained the object who made her feel that she was no longer mistress of herself. This fatal secret she revealed to no one. It preyed upon her heart, and her life; and, not until the Marchioness was secluded with her in the convent of the Ursalines, did she penetrate its depth and power. She also had wept in silence, over what she had too soon discerned; this unhappy, unuttered passion: and a sad immature grave, seemed ever opening before the feet of her most loved child.

But, when her eyes fell on the paragraph concerning Marcella, in the letter from Louis to Ferdinand, she became convinced that the tenderness was mutual; and that mutual was the hopelessness and misery.

Without appearing to design any peculiar communication to her daughter, she read the letter to her; and dwelt with particular emphasis on that comprehensive sentence. Marcella listened, as if transfixed by a shaft. She durst not receive its import; she feared there would be crime in even wishing it real; although her abbess aunt had put a decisive on her monastic intentions, by telling her there would be positive guilt in her becoming a Catholic nun, with her religious reservations.

"Not a nun!" murmured she to herself, "but I have never been allowed to consider myself with any connection with the world. I feel as if I sinned in the very wish! and I must be a recluse." She leaned her throbbing head upon her hand. "My child," said her mother, tenderly drawing near her; "what do you think of de Montemar's animated gratitude, in these touching sentiments?"

"That it is gratitude!" replied Marcella, rising with a forced smile, "and I am obliged to him for anticipating a pity, which my aunt teaches me, I cannot with conscience put myself into the condition to merit."

"And do you see no more than gratitude and compassion here?" asked the Marchioness, re-reading the passage, and holding her daughter's arm while she did so. "Were I to speak what I think, this matchless young man loves you!"

These words, from the lips of her mother, were more than Marcella could bear; she gasped and fell into her arms.

When the Marquis returned from his successful mission to Rome, he found his sister dead; and his wife in possession of his daughter's unlimited confidence; but that timid and self-accusing daughter, was brought to the verge of the grave by sorrow for the deceased, and shame at the weakness of her heart.

His first communication to the Marchioness was to prepare her family for crossing with him to England.

"I have given my sanction to Ferdinand's attachment to the niece of Mr. Athelstone;" said he, "travelling and change of scene will be beneficial to Marcella; and our friends of Lindisfarne will give us the welcome of kindred."

Marcella obeyed the commands of her father in these preparations: and perhaps the more readily, since her mother's irrepressible and constant representations of Louis's demonstrations of a peculiar sentiment for her, had in spite of her own prepossessions to the contrary, and what she would not acknowledge to herself, given her an idea of the possibility of what her mother believed, being true. In urging these sometimes visionary arguments, the Marchioness at last said to her.

"Should you and the Marquis de Montemar meet as I expect, it is not probable that your father would be more inexorable to his daughter and best loved friend, than he has proved himself to Ferdinand and Alice Coningsby!"

"If I go to England," returned Marcella, and she believed she spoke the truth, "I will never meet the Marquis de Montemar at all, if you, my dear mother, are to draw any conclusions from that, that I expect, or even wish him to consider me in any other light than as a professed nun. That sin of my imagination is now over: I shall see my father's friend with the confidence of a sister. But no more."

If the Marchioness thought otherwise, she did not express it; and Marcella was not again persecuted on the subject.

Being in England; and learning from her mother, (who glided out of the room with the information;) that the preserver of her father and her brother, was then in the house; she did not deny the next request, that she would obey her father's wish in joining the party in the drawing-room. She felt confident in her own resolves; and with a serene aspect, put her arm on her mother's to comply.

She was in black.—It was the first time Louis had seen her out of the dress of a nun; and, on her entrance, he started with an emotion that surprized him, at so unexpected a change.

Her face and hands were pale; but a gentle colour, like the soft reflection from the rose, passed over her cheek, as he approached her. She tried to meet him with tranquillity; and to look at him with the open eye of friendly cognizance. But the moment his hand touched hers, her eye-lids fell; and a chill ran through her whole frame, to blanch her cheeks; and shook her with such a trembling, that the Marchioness made a sign to her husband to assist her in bearing her to the sofa.

The Marquis sat for same time, rubbing his daughter's cold hands in his; and the Marchioness touched her forehead and lips with essence. Louis did not venture to follow her to the sofa, but remaining standing where the group left him; and, as she lay, like a lilly on a velvet pall; so fair and fragile, in her mourning garments, he felt the possibility of his feeling a yet bitterer pang, than the death of his false friend. But the moment he thought so, he checked the selfish sentiment; and said in anguish of spirit to himself.—"O no! For with that gentle being dwells innocence and virtue.—When she goes hence her translation is to heaven:—And, can I mourn with bitterness, her who is in blessedness? But when the deluding, the betrayer, the impenitent! are called away! then my cry may be that of David —Oh, thou who wert once my friend—would to God, I could have died for thee!"

Ferdinand observed his countenance, and touched his arm.—"Why do you gaze with such despair on my sister?" whispered he, "Her illness is merely weakness, from fatigue. Lindisfarne will restore us all!"

"Heaven grant it!" was the response of Louis, as he recalled himself from the momentary wandering of his thoughts.

Marcella soon after re-opened her eyes; and having recovered her perfect recollection, she also strove to rally her self possession; and, though with still down-cast lids, she stretched out her hand to her father's friend, as he again advanced to impress it with his lips;—and in a calm, but low voice, expressed her pleasure at seeing him returned in safety to the country of his dearest relations. Louis, without attending to all the import of his words, replied by saying, that he trusted she would consider them as her own.

Many mutual inquiries now took place, and her share of the conversation was carried on for nearly an hour, with a composure, on the side of her daughter, that surprised and pleased the Marchioness. When she appeared exhausted, her mother rose; and she, following her example, took the parental arm, and with a bend of her head to her father, quitted the room.

Santa Cruz turned towards Louis, as his daughter disappeared; and observed, with a solemn emotion at his heart, that his eyes followed with anxiety, the slow progress of Marcella from the room; that he gazed on the door, a long time after it was closed on her; and then withdrew his attention, with a heavy, and deep-drawn sigh.

"De Montemar," said the Marquis, "come with me into my chamber; for I have much to say to you." The conference lasted many hours.—Santa Cruz assured him, that he had left no power unexerted, day or night, to bring the prejudiced mind of the King of Spain, to a fair judgment on the Duke de Ripperda's political integrity, great exasperations, and religious penitence.—"The Queen was more placable on your behalf;" continued the Marquis, "since the subject in debate was a handsome young man, who admired her.—At least so Duke Wharton made her believe!"

"Duke Wharton!" echoed Louis.

"Yes," replied the Marquis, "that man was ever a Proteus; and never more so, than in the present instance. When I, and all the Spanish ministry, thought him the most active enemy you had; he became master of all the malignancy that was in arms or in ambuscade against you; and, by a generalship as effective as it was surprising, turned the whole battery against its inventors." "Marquis!" cried Louis, starting from his chair; "What is it you say?"

"The truth, though a strange one," replied Santa Cruz, "and this ruse de guerre of his was so artfully managed, that not a man in the Spanish cabinet is aware of the hand that gave the overthrow. Being one in all their secret counsels, he influenced the separate members, to certain exaggerated conduct; and playing the one off against the other, in their allegations against your father, managed that contradictions should occur in every hearing before the King. And, by himself accusing you to the Queen, in terms to awaken her vanity against your enemies, and to influence it with a belief in your personal loyalty to her; he gained your point there. With your personal enemies, and his political friends, he affected to wonder at the Marquis de Montemar's restitution to the royal favour; while with me, he rejoiced in private,—laughing at the absurdity of such grey-beards, as the frowning de Castellor, and that earthworm de Paz, making any tilt against the armed virtue of Æneas and his Achates.

"And his cloud is a bright one!" continued the Marquis, kindling with his subject. "It has absorbed the follies of his youth. And, gazing with wonder at his capacity, I beheld with admiration, the man I once despised. In short, his genius, with a sort of supernatural cognizance, darts into the views of men, and turns their devices to the side of justice and honour!"

Louis's deep groans burst upon the ear of Santa Cruz. His face, for some time, had been covered with his hands. An amazed inquiry, and an agonized reply, soon informed the Marquis of its cause. Wharton, that unalienable, that energetic friend, was then at the point of death, in the house of his uncle at Morewick! was dying, under an impression that Louis was estranged from him; nay, had united with his father in denouncing him as a traitor! He might now be dead!—And he, who loved him to the last, never be able to pour out his gratitude for such noble assertion of that father's fame!

This information astonished, and distressed Santa Cruz; and the greater the extremity of the Duke, the more he thought himself called upon, to relate every thing explicitly to his agonized friend. In the course of this protracted conversation, he gave a brief account of all he knew of Wharton's conduct throughout the whole transactions relative to the Duke de Ripperda.

Wharton frankly acknowledged, that from the period he was convinced no impressions in behalf of the Stuart or Bavarian interests, could be made on Spain, he determined to overthrow the political power of him, who avowed himself the root of this obstinacy. Ripperda had proclaimed his devotion to the House of Brunswick, more than once, at the great councils of Vienna. He had affirmed his implacability to both pretenders, at the table of the Cardinal Giovenozzi; and he did it, with circumstances of such personal insult to Wharton, that the English Duke, at once laid a comprehensive plan to make him feel his power.

Routemberg's conspiracy against the Spanish minister, did not originate with Wharton; but it was modified by him; he mounted the guns, and planted the circular batteries; and he did it, to bring Ripperda to a point, where none could preserve him but the man who held the springs of every movement in his own hands. This man was Wharton's self. Twice, at critical moments, in Vienna and at Madrid, he offered his terms:—to unmask every machination against Ripperda; and to maintain him in his seat against all the world; if he would at last oppose the house of Brunswick in the empire and in England. Both overtures were rejected with disdain; and events took their course. Ripperda's was a fall, not a descent, and the ruin was terrible. The new ministers of Spain, who had bought their elevation by embracing Wharton's views, triumphed in every way over their disgraced predecessor. But the English politician was of another spirit. His enemy, once down, his care might be to prevent his rising to the same adverse station; but he told his coadjutors, he was not of the herd to strike his heel against the fallen lion.

It did not, at this juncture, accord with the interests of his two royal friends, James Stuart, and Maria of Bavaria, to make a full disclosure in favour of the overthrown Duke; but he made secret visits to the King's confessor, and to the Queen's, not to incense, as was supposed, but to propitiate each sovereign against the cabinet ministers' rancorous persecution of their fallen rival. He denied all the circumstances which had been alleged by these men, to prove that Ripperda had negociated with him against the existing orders of Philip. He positively asserted, there had never been any amicable private meeting between them. He explained the adventure in the Carinthian post-house, where he returned the dispatches to the Duke; also another rencounter in the mountains of Genoa where he accidentally rescued him from a band of assassins, to whom he had been betrayed by a man who was a Spaniard; "and therefore," said Wharton, "I will not name him."

It were not possible to describe the varied anguish of Louis de Montemar, during this discourse, and the new discoveries it made at every sentence. He did not utter it, for he was on the rack. But when he found that it was Wharton's arm which had saved his father amongst the maritime Alps; that it was to him, though unknown, Ripperda had bequeathed the Gratitude of his son;—then Louis felt the iron enter his soul.

In short, Santa Cruz informed him, that Wharton proved to the King and Queen, that his enmity was against Ripperda's politics, not against himself; though he protested, there was not a man on earth who detested another with more determined hatred than the ex-minister detested him.

Things were in this state, when the Duke was summoned by the Chevalier St. George, to a conference at Rome, and the field being left open to Grimaldo and his colleagues, their violent proceedings ended in the flight of their proposed victim.

In this pause of the narrative, Louis wrung his hands, and bitterly exclaimed:

"What an extreme and false judge have I been of this unexampled friend! And just is my punishment, that I should lose him for ever, in the moment I know his invaluable worth!" "Be not unjust to yourself, my dear de Montemar," answered the Marquis, "Philip Wharton did not open to me only half his soul. When we pledged our faith to each other, on two sacred subjects, (one of which was your restitution to your rights; but which coalition to your advantage, was not to be revealed to you till it was successful:) he confessed to me, that he deserved your warmest resentment; for, the sin of his life, since he knew you, was an incessant attempt at rendering you in all things like himself! De Montemar was bright and ambitious," said he, "too likely to outshine his master, unless I gave his towering soul a little of my own ballast. I tried him, where man is most vulnerable. Marquis! I was so very a wretch, that the clearer I saw my power over him, with a more devilish zeal I thrust him into the fire. In the garden of the Chateau de Phaffenberg was the scene of my last attempt! His resolution, not only to meet ruin himself, but to consign his idolized father to the same, rather than rescue either by a dereliction from virtue, was a sword, that cut asunder marrow and spirit! Since that hour, I have regarded that boy as a Mentor, worth all the bearded sages, from Socrates to the Cambray Bishop!"—

"So spoke the animated Duke," continued Santa Cruz; "and he has honoured his model! For, from that time, (although it was long before I shared his secret,) he has been your unsuspected and efficient friend. The re-enrolment of your father's name in the national archives; and, these parchments, containing your own restituted rights without condition or substraction, but the Dukedom of Ripperda, (which none but a Catholic can bear,) are undeniable witnesses of this fact."

"Marquis!" replied Louis, walking the room in insupportable agony of spirit; "you heap coals of fire upon my head! Oh, why must I remember, whose voice denounced him to this government; who proclaimed him a traitor to the House of Hanover!—His own rights in this country are wrested from him by that hand!—a price is set on his head,—and hidden like a thief, he lies, murdered by assassins, under the very roof which ought to have been rent with acclamations, when he sought it as a refuge!—Oh, my venerable friend, I cannot bear what is pressing on my brain!"

The Marquis saw that Louis was in no condition to listen with attention, much less with complacency, to any thing else he had to impart; and aware that his greatest proof of kindness would be to hasten his return to Morewick, to yield him some chance of seeing his friend alive; he declared that such was first in his thoughts; and he soon withdrew, to give corresponding directions to his family.