It diverted the maiden’s mind in a measure from its own harassing thoughts, and thus introduced a kind of composure where all had been before painful agitation.  Nay, as the sounds, which were at no time very loud, mingled with the piping of the gale without and the rustling of the old elm at the door, they lost their harshness, and were softened into a descant that was lulling to the senses, and might, like a gentler nepenthe, have, in time, cheated the over-weary mind to repose.  Such, perhaps, was beginning to be its effect.  Edith ceased to bend upon the hag the wild, terrified looks that at first rewarded the music; she sunk her head upon her bosom, and sat as if gradually giving way to a lethargy of spirit, which, if not sleep, was sleep’s most beneficent substitute.

From this state of calm she was roused by the sudden cessation of the music; and looking up, she beheld, with a renewal of all her alarms, a tall man, standing before her, his face and figure both enveloped in the folds of a huge blanket, from which, however, a pair of gleaming eyes were seen riveted upon her own countenance.  At the same time, she observed that the old Indian woman had risen, and was stealing softly from the apartment.  Filled with terror, she would have rushed after the hag, to claim her protection:  but she was immediately arrested by the visitor, who, seizing her by the arm firmly, yet with an air of respect, and suffering his blanket to drop to the ground, displayed to her gaze features that had long dwelt, its darkest phantoms, upon her mind.  As he seized her, he muttered, and still with an accent of the most earnest respect,—­“Fear me not, Edith; I am not yet an enemy.”

His voice, though one of gentleness, and even of music, completed the terrors of the captive, who trembled in his hand like a quail in the clutches of a kite, and would, but for his grasp, as powerful to sustain as to oppose, have fallen to the floor.  Her lips quivered, but they gave forth no sound; and her eyes were fastened upon his with a wildness and intensity of glare that showed the fascination, the temporary self-abandonment of her spirit.

“Fear me not, Edith Forrester,” he repeated, with a voice even more soothing than before:  “You know me;—­I am no savage;—­I will do you no harm.”

“Yes,—­yes,—­yes,” muttered Edith at last, but in the tones of an automaton, they were, at first, so broken and inarticulate, though they gathered force and vehemence as she spoke—­“I know you,—­yes, yes, I do know you, and know you well.  You are Richard Braxley,—­the robber, and now the persecutor of the orphan; and this hand that holds me is red with the blood of my cousin.  Oh, villain! villain! are you not yet content?”