his face with wistful, searching eyes. "Danger! none, sweet
trembler," answered the Earl, evasively.

Edith dropped her eager looks, and clinging to his arm, drew him on
silently into the forest land. She paused at last where the old
fantastic trees shut out the view of the ancient ruins; and when,
looking round, she saw not those grey gigantic shafts which mortal
hand seemed never to have piled together, she breathed more freely.

"Speak to me," then said Harold, bending his face to hers; "why this
silence?"

"Ah, Harold!" answered his betrothed, "thou knowest that ever since we
have loved one another, my existence hath been but a shadow of thine;
by some weird and strange mystery, which Hilda would explain by the
stars or the fates, that have made me a part of thee, I know by the
lightness or gloom of my own spirit when good or ill shall befall
thee. How often, in thine absence, hath a joy suddenly broke upon me;
and I felt by that joy, as by the smile of a good angel, that thou
hast passed safe through some peril, or triumphed over some foe! And
now thou askest me why I am so sad;--I can only answer thee by saying,
that the sadness is cast upon me by some thunder gloom on thine own
destiny."

Harold had sought Edith to speak of his meditated journey, but seeing
her dejection he did not dare; so he drew her to his breast, and chid
her soothingly for her vain apprehensions. But Edith would not be
comforted; there seemed something weighing on her mind and struggling
to her lips, not accounted for merely by sympathetic forebodings; and
at length, as he pressed her to tell all, she gathered courage and