194
WYLDER'S HAJVD.
parting, and a promise from the simple and gentle Vicar
that he would often look in at Redman's Farm.
She watched his retreating figure as he and little Fairy
walked down the tenebrose road to Gylingden, following
them with a dismal gaze, as a benighted and wounded
wayfarer in that "Valley" would the pale lamp's disap-
pearing that had for a few minutes, in a friendly hand,
shone over his dreadful darkness.
And when, in fitful reveries, fancy turned for a moment
to an earthly past and future, all there was a blank — the
past saddened, the future bleak. She did not know, or even
suspect, that she had been living in an aerial castle, and
worshipping an unreal image, until, on a sudden, all was
revealed in that chance gleam of cruel lightning, the line
in that letter, which she read so often, spelled over, and
pozzled over so industriously, though it was clear enough.
How noble, how good how bright and true, was that hero
of her unconscious romance.
Well, no one else suspected that incipient madness —
that was something; and brave Rachel would quite master
it. Happy she had discovered it so soon. Besides, it was,
even if Chelford were at her feet, a wild impossibility
now; and it was well, though despair were in the pang,
that she had, at last, quite explained this to herself.
As Rachel stood in her little garden, on the spot where
she had bidden farewell to the Vicar, she was roused from
her vague and dismal reverie by the sound of a carriage
close at hand. She had just time to see that it was a
1 . brougham, and to recognise the Brandon liveries, when it
drew up at the garden wicket, and Dorcas called to bcr
from the open window.
"I'm come, Rachel, expressly to take you with me; and
I won't be denied."
"You are very good, Dorcas; thank you, dear, very