horse--the swiftest in his splendid stud; and the dim but flaring light,
held by another of the servitors, streamed against the dull heavens and
the imperfectly seen and frowning ruins of the ancient pile.

Godolphin, unconscious of all around, and muttering to himself, leaped on
his steed: the fire glinted from the coursers hoofs; and thus the last
lord of that knightly race bade farewell to his father's halls. Those
words which he had muttered, and which his favourite servant caught and
superstitiously remembered, were the words in Lucilla's note--"The hour
has arrived!"

CHAPTER THE LAST.

A DREAD MEETING.--THE STORM.--THE CATASTROPHE.

On the humble pallet of the village inn lay the broken form of the
astrologer's expiring daughter. The surgeon of the place sat by the
bedside, dismayed and terrified, despite his hardened vocation, by the
wild words and ghastly shrieks that ever and anon burst from the lips of
the dying woman. The words were, indeed, uttered in a foreign tongue
unfamiliar to the leech, a language not ordinarily suited to inspire
terror; the language of love, and poetry, and music, the language of the
sweet South. But, uttered in that voice where the passions of the soul
still wrestled against the gathering weakness of the frame, the soft
syllables sounded harsh and fearful; and the dishevelled locks of the
sufferer--the wandering fire of the sunken eyes--the distorted gestures of
the thin, transparent arms, gave fierce effect to the unknown words, and
betrayed the dark strength of the delirium which raged upon her.

One wretched light on the rude table opposite the bed broke the gloom of