the feast ere it deepened into revel, and, absorbed in various and
profound contemplation, entered his apartment. He threw himself on a
seat, and leaned his face on his hands.

"Oh, no, no!" he muttered; "now, in the hour when true greatness is
most seen, when prince and peer crowd around me for counsel, when
noble, knight, and squire crave permission to march in the troop of
which Hastings is the leader,--now I feel how impossible, how falsely
fair, the dream that I could forget all--all for a life of obscurity,
for a young girl's love! Love! as if I had not felt its delusions to
palling! love, as if I could love again: or, if love--alas, it must be
a light reflected but from memory! And Katherine is free once more!"
His eye fell as he spoke, perhaps in shame and remorse that, feeling
thus now, he had felt so differently when he bade Sibyll smile till
his return!

"It is the air of this accursed court which taints our best resolves!"
he murmured, as an apology for himself; but scarcely was the poor
excuse made, than the murmur broke into an exclamation of surprise and
joy. A letter lay before him; he recognized the hand of Katherine.
What years had passed since her writing had met his eye, since the
lines that bade him "farewell, and forget!" Those lines had been
blotted with tears, and these, as he tore open the silk that bound
them--these, the trace of tears, too, was on them! Yet they were but
few, and in tremulous characters. They ran thus:--

To-morrow, before noon, the Lord Hastings is prayed to visit one whose
life he hath saddened by the thought and the accusation that she hath
clouded and embittered his. KATHERINE DE BONVILLE.