for a medicine to my woes. Innocence the Gods have made superior and
invulnerable. And, oh, in what have I transgressed? Yet, my father, I am
wounded in the tenderest part. Shall I ever recover my Imogen? Is she
not torn from me irreversibly? How shall I engage with powers invisible,
and supernatural? How shall I discover my unknown, human enemy? No,
Madoc, I am lost in impenetrable darkness. For me there is no hope, no
shadow of approaching ease."

"Be calm, my son," rejoined the anchorite. "Arrogance and impatience
become not the weak and uninformed children of the earth. Be calm, and I
will administer a remedy more appropriate to your wrongs. But remember
this is your hour of trial. If now you forget the principles of your
youth, and the instructions of the sacred Druids, you shall fall from
happiness, never to regain it more. But if you come forth pure and
unblemished from the fierce assay, your Imogen shall be yours, the Gods
shall take you into their resistless protection, and in all future ages,
when men would cite an example of distinguished felicity, they shall
say, as fortunate as Edwin of the vale." Edwin bended his knee in mute
submission.

"Listen, my son," continued the Druid. "I know your enemy, and can point
out to you his obscure retreat." The shepherd lifted up his eyes, lately
so languid, that now flashed with fire. He eagerly grasped the hand of
Madoc. "Alas," continued the hermit, "to know him would little answer
the purpose of thy bold and enterprising spirit. They adversary, as thou
mayest have conjectured, is in league with the powers of darkness.
Against them what can courage, what can adventure avail? They can
unthread thy joints, and crumble all thy sinews. They can chain up thy
limbs in marble. For how many perils, how many unforseen disasters ought
he to be prepared, who dares to encounter them?"