He then seemed as one laboring under painful and heavy thought, as one brooding over some mighty change within, as if some question of weighty import were struggling with recollections and visions of the past.

He had spoken little, evidently shrinking in pain from all reference to or information on the late engagement.

He tarried not long, departing with dawn next day, and they did not meet again.
And what had been the emotions of the countess?
perhaps her heart had throbbed, and her cheek paled and flushed, at this unexpected meeting with one she had fervently prayed never to see again; but not one feeling obtained ascendency in that heart which she would have dreaded to unveil to the eye of her husband.

She did indeed feel that had her lot been cast otherwise, it must have been a happy one, but the thought was transient.

She was a wife, a mother, and in the happiness of her children, her youth, and all its joys and pangs, and dreams and hopes, were merged, to be recalled no more.
The task of instilling patriotic sentiments in the breast of her son had been insensibly aided by the countess's independent position amid the retainers of Buchan.