I
guess better than he, that the schemes on which you are rushing are
too mighty for your management, and that you are now setting the stone
a-rolling, which must surely crush you in its descent. I bid
fare-well," she added, "to my fellow-victim!"
This was spoken with a tone of deep and serious feeling, altogether
different from the usual levity of Catherine's manner, and plainly
showed, that beneath the giddiness of extreme youth and total
inexperience, there lurked in her bosom a deeper power of sense and
feeling, than her conduct had hitherto expressed.
The Abbess remained a moment silent after she had left the room. The
proposed rebuke died on her tongue, and she appeared struck with the
deep and foreboding, tone in which her niece had spoken her good-even.
She led the way in silence to the apartment which they had formerly
occupied, and where there was prepared a small refection, as the
Abbess termed it, consisting of milk and barley-bread. Magdalen
Graeme, summoned to take share in this collation, appeared from an
adjoining apartment, but Catherine was seen no more. There was little
said during the hasty meal, and after it was finished, Roland Graeme
was dismissed to the nearest cell, where some preparations had been
made for his repose.
The strange circumstances in which he found himself, had their usual
effect in preventing slumber from hastily descending on him, and he
could distinctly hear, by a low but earnest murmuring in the apartment
which he had left, that the matrons continued in deep consultation to
a late hour.
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