CHAPTER XVIII.
"How hast thou charm'd The wildness of the waves and rocks to this?
That thus relenting they have giv'n thee back To earth, to light and life." Lucie, immediately after parting with Stanhope, chanced to meet father Gilbert, as he was hurrying from the spot where he had just held his singular interview with Madame de la Tour.

She avoided him, with that instinctive dread of which she could never divest herself on seeing him; and he passed on, without appearing to notice her, but with a rapidity too unusual to escape her observation.

She found Annette's quiet cottage in the utmost confusion, occasioned by the sudden illness of Madame de la Tour, who had then scarcely recovered from her alarming insensibility.

Lucie hung over her with the most anxious tenderness, and her heart bitterly accused her of selfishness, or, at best, of inconsideration, in having been induced to prolong her absence.

But her aunt did not allude to it, even after her consciousness was entirely restored; she spoke lightly of her indisposition, attributing it entirely to fatigue, though her sad and abstracted countenance shewed that her mind was engrossed by some painful subject.