Thus then had the days passed with
Marian during those years of which her
sister knew so little, each day sadder and
bearing less of hope than the last. She
had heard of her mother's death, that mother
whom she had once so cherished,
whose memory was still so dear to her—
yet had those gloomy tidings brought no
increase to the unhappy wife's cold sadness.
No! so completely had the harden
ing touch of despair petrified all her feelings,
that she now felt that nothing could
increase or diminish the burden under
which she labored. If she thought of the
dead at all, it was to envy, not weep—it
was to clasp her hands, and turn her eyes
up to heaven, and to cry—“Blessed are
the dead, who die in the Lord; even so
saith the Spirit; for they rest from their labors!”
And worse every day, and more
vicious—aye! and more loathsome and
more cruel in his vices, did Ernest de
Vaux show himself. Alas!—the career of
vice is as it were on a road up a steep
mountain's side. There is no halting on
the way, no standing still—no power of
remaining where you are. Upward or
downward, you must on, and on for ever!
Upward with conscientious hopes and
earnest struggles and energetical resolves
to virtue, and to honor, and to peace—or
downward, with headlong speed, to crime,
and agony, and ruin, and that perdition
which shall not end when all things else
have reached their termination. Alas! I
say—alas! for this latter was the path in
which the steps of De Vaux were hurrying,
and towards this termination.

From gentlemanly vice, as it is falsely
called, and those extravagances or excesses
rather, of which men, deemed by the
world honorable, may be guilty without
losing caste, Ernest began now to degenerate
into low profligacy, vulgar habitual
debauchery! His noble features and fine
form had already begun to display the
symptoms of habitual intemperance; his
courtly manners and air once so noble
had deteriorated sadly; his temper, so
equable and mild, and at the least in outward
show so kindly, had become harsh,
and quernlous, uneven, and at times violent
and brutal.

Yet Marian still clung to him, faithful in
weal and woe, in wealth as in poverty—
for at times, in the changes and chances
of the civil war, they had in truth undergone
much hardship—she was still the
unchanged, unrepining, fond consoler—
but alas! how cruelly, and how often
were her sweet consolations cast back
upon her, her kind and affectionate advances
met with harsh words, and bitter
menaces—and once! yes, once, when the
mad demon of intoxication was all powerful
within him—yes! once with a blow.

It was the fifth year of the civil war,
and though many fierce and sanguinary
fields had been fought, many towns taken,
many halls and manor-houses stormed
and defended, much generous, noble blood
prodigally wasted, neither side yet had
gained anything of real or permanent

[figure description] Page 046.[end figure description]

advantage. It was the fifth year of the civil
war, and the Marquis of Newcastle, one
of the most accomplished and gallant noblemen
of the day, was holding York for
the King, though besieged with an over-whelming
force, by the united forces of
the English puritans and independents,
under Lord Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell,
and the Scotch covenanters, under David
Leslie, and many of the Protestant Lords
of the sister kingdom.

The siege had indeed lasted some time,
but although those within the city were
beginning to look eagerly for the relief
which was expected daily from Prince
Rupert, they were not as yet straitened
for provision, or dispirited. And here in
the midst of present apprehension, and
perhaps soon to be in the midst of peril,
here in the very city, wherein she had
passed those few bright days, the brightest
and the happiest of her life, alas! that
they should have led to consequences so
cruelly disastrous—here in a poor mean
lodging in a small narrow street, nigh
Stonegate, dwelt the once bright and
happy Marian.

It was night, and although summer
time, the air was exceeding damp and chilling.
It was night, dead might, and quite
dark, for there was no moon, and the
skies were so cloudy that the faint glimmer
of the stars failed to pierce their
thick folds. There were no sounds abroad
in the beleagnered city but the distant call
from hour to hour of the answered sentinel,
and the occasional tramp and clash
of arms, as the grand rounds passed
through the streets to visit the outposts,
or the relief parties marched toward the
walls.

At this dead hour of the night, in a
small wretched parlor scantily furnished
with a few common wooden chairs, a
coarse oak table on which stood a brazen
lamp diffusing a pale uncertain light
through the low roofed apartment, and
sufficing barely to show the extreme poverty
and extreme cleanliness of that
abode of high born beauty, sat Marian,
Lady de Vaux, plainly attired, and in no
wise becomingly to her high station, pale,
wan, and thin, and careworn, and no
more like to the Marian Hawkwood of old
days than the poor disembodied ghost to
the fair form it once inhabited.

The floor of the wretched room was
neatly sanded, for it was carpetless, and
no curtains veiled the small latticed casements—
the walls were hung with defensive
armor and a few weapons, two or
three cloaks and feathered hats, disposed
with a sad attempt at symmetrical arrange
ment and decoration—four or five books
some paper and materials for writing, and
an old lute lay on the table by which
Marian was sitting, and on another smalle
board at a little distance, neatly arranged
with a clean white cloth, stood a loaf of
bread, the remnants, now very low reduced,
of a sirloin, and a half bottle of red
wine—the supper prepared by the haples
wife, herself fasting and hungered, for the
base recreant husband.

An open Bible lay before Marian on the
board, but though her eyes rested on the
blessed promises, and her hands at times
as if mechanically turned its pages, her
mind was far away, suspended on every
distant sound that rose from the deserted
streets, starting at every passing footstep
with a strange mixture as it seemed of
eager expectation and wild fear.

At length a quick, strong, heavy tread
came up the street, and paused under the
window.

“It is he,” she said, listening intently
with a deep crimson flush rising to her
whole face, but receding rapidly, and
leaving only two round hectic spots high
up on her cheek bones. “Thank God
it is he at last!” and she arose and trimmed
the lamp, and drew the little table
forward with the preparation for his supper—
but, as the door below yielded to the
pass-key which he carried, she started and
turned white as ashes; for the sound of a
second step reached her ears, and the soft
cadence of a female voice. She paused,
with her whole soul intent upon the
sound, and as they came nearer and nearer,
and more and more distinct—

“My God!” she said to herself, in a low
choked whisper clasping her hands together,
as if in mortal anguish, “my God!
it cannot be!”

But it was—it was, as she dreaded, as
she would not believe! Shame on the
dastard villain! it was true!

The door opened suddenly, and Ernest
de Vaux entered, with a tall and exceedingly
handsome woman leaning upon his
arm, whom Marian recognished the very
moment their eyes met, for the Lady Agnes
Trevor, of whose bold and shameless
conduct with her husband she had long
heard, though she strove to close her ears
to them, a thousand cruel rumors. This
last worst outrage, however, was not
without its effect; even the worm, when
trodden under foot, will, it is said, rise up
against its torturer; and even her base
husband was astonished at the superb and
stately majesty with which the wronged
and heart-broken woman drew herself up,
as they entered, at the flash of grand

[figure description] Page 047.[end figure description]

indignation which lightened from every
speaking feature; if he had calculated
that her spirit was so utterly cowed and
broken, that she would endure everything
in silence, madly had he erred, and tremendously
was he now undeceived.

Even the guilty woman who accompanied
him, started back in dismay; it
would appear even that she had not
known before whither he was conducting
her, for she shrank back aghast, and clung
to his arm yet closer than before, as she
asked in a tremulous and agitated tone,
“Who is this, who is this lady? Ernest!”

“It is his wife, madame!” replied Marian,
taking a forward step; “his wedded
wife, for whom it is rather to ask, who you
are, that intrude thus upon her, at this
untimely hour?”

“It is my wife, Agnes,” answered De
Vaux at the same moment; “my wife,
who will be happy to extend her hospitality
to you, until these most unhappy jars
are ended, and you reconciled to my lord;
Marian, it is the Lady Agnes Trevor, who
asks your welcome; assure her”—

“I do assure her—” replied Marian,
haughtily; “that she is perfectly, fully
welcome to enjoy all the comforts, all the
hospitalities which this roof has to offer—
this roof”—

“Why, that is well,” replied her husband,
with a sneering smile, “I told you,
Agnes, she would be very glad to receive
you, she is a sweet, mild, patient little
creature, this pretty wife of mine!”

“This roof,” continued Marian, “which,
from this hour, shall never cover my head
any more.”

“Heyday! heyday! what is all this?
what does this mean”—

“It means, simply, that hitherto I have
borne much, have borne all—but infamy,
and infamy I will bear never. Fare-you-well,
sir; may you repent, I say—may
you repent, I say, and ere it be too late,
and may you,” she added, turning to the
frail beauty, who trembled in her presence,
“may you never know the agonies
which you have heaped upon my soul?”

And she passed by them, with a movement
so impetuously rapid, that she was
out of the door before Ernest, to whom
Agnes Trevor was clinging still in mortal
terror, could interpose to arrest her flight
But recovering himself, instantly he darted
after and caught her by her dress, and
would have dragged her back into the
room, but she laid hold of the balustrades
of the staircase, and clung to them so
strongly, that he could not move her.

“Do you so little know me, Marian,”
he exclaimed furiously, “as to imagine
that I would suffer my wife to go forth
alone, a mark for evil tongues, at such an
hour as this—back! Madam Marian—
back to your chamber, or you will force
me to do that I shall be sorry for!”

“Sorry for!” answered Marian, with
calm scorn, “you sorry for aught of injury
to me! and do you, sir, so little know
me as to imagine that I would stay one
moment under the same roof with your”—

“With my what—with my what, madam?”
shouted De Vaux, “beware how
you answer!”

“Unhand me, sir, unhand me!” she replied,
“unhand me; for I will go forth!”

“Answer me—with my what? under
the same roof with my what?” he again
exclaimed, shaking her violently by the
arm.

“With your harlots, sir,” she replied,
firmly, and at the same moment two fearful
sounds followed her words; one the
most fearful sound, perhaps, that can be
heard on earth at all; the sound of a heavy
blow dealt by a man to a weak woman;
the other a wild, piercing female yell—a
yell that echoed far and wide through the
midnight city. But it came not, that awful
shriek, from the lips of Marian.

No, no; it was the reckless, the abandoned
outcast wife of the Lord Albert Trevor,
that uttered the heart-rending cry, as
she rushed, with a frantic air, out of the
chamber, and throwing herself at the feet
of her seducer, and clasping his knees
wildly with one hand, caught with the
other his upraised right arm—upraised
again to smite her whom he had sworn to
love and honor.

“Me, me!” she cried, “oh, God—me!
me! not her—strike me—strike me, not
her! for I deserve it—deserve it all—all—
all—me, as she rightly termed me; me,
the outcast—the harlot!”

And with so powerful a grasp, moved
by the ecstasy of remorse and frenzy, did
the frail creature restrain the ruffian's fury,
that he was forced to stoop down and
exert some power to remove her. But
the moment Marian perceived what was
passing, she darted down the stairs, and
through the front door, which she closed
violently behind her, and into the vacant
street, and fled with a speed that soon set
pursuit at defiance. That night she slept
at her old uncle's house in the Minster
yard, the following day York was relieved,
and the siege of the Puritans raised by the
fiery Rupert. On the third morning the royal
troops sallied forth to give battle to the troops
of Fairfax upon the fatal Moor of Long Marston,
and while the roar of cannon was
deafening the ears of all for miles around

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her, and her had husband was charging in
the maddest strife, Marian was hurrying
home to die—hurrying home to die in the
calm shades of Wharfdale.