“Maiden, beware!”

Constance turned towards him:—­the moonlight fell on his brow:  the dark curls swept nobly out from their broad shadows twining luxuriantly about his cheek.  His eyes were fixed on her, with an eagerness and an anguish in their expression the most absorbing and intense.

“I have loved thee.  Ay, if it be love to live whole nights on the memory of a glance,—­on a smile,—­on the indelible impress of thy form.  Here,—­here!  But no living thing that I have loved;—­no being that e’er looked on me with kindliness and favour, that has not been marked out for destruction.  Oh, that those eyes had ne’er looked upon me!  Thou wert happy, and I have lingered on thy footstep till I have dragged thee to the same gulph where all hope—­all joy that e’er stole in upon my dark path, must perish.”

“Oh! do not foretaste thy misery thus,” cried Constance.  “The cruel sufferings thou hast undergone make thee apprehensive of evil.  But how can thy fate control my destiny?”

“How, I know not,” said Tyrone, “save that it shall bring the same clouds, in unmitigated darkness, about thy path.  Dost thou love me?  Nay, start not.  Stay not!” cried he, making way for the maiden to pass.  But Constance seemed unable to move,—­terrified and speechless.

“Perchance, thou knowest it not, but thou wouldest love me as a woman loves;—­ay, beyond even the verge and extremity of hope!  Even now the poison rankles in thy bosom.  Hark!—­’tis the doom yon glorious intelligences denounced from that glittering vault, when they proclaimed my birth!”

He repeated the prediction as aforetime, with a deep, solemn intonation:—­the maiden’s blood seemed to curdle with horror.  A pause of bewildering and mysterious terror followed.  One brief minute in the lapse of time,—­but an age in the records of thought!  Constance, fearful of looking on the dark billows of the spirit, sought to avert her glance.

“Thou art an exile, and misfortune prompted me to thy succour; thou hast won my pity, stranger.”

“Beshrew me, ’tis a wary and subtle deceiver, this same casuist love.  Believe him not!” said he, in a burst and agony of soul that made Constance tremble.  “He would lead thee veiled to the very brink of the precipice, then snatch the shelter from thine eyes and bid thee leap!  Nay, ’tis not pride,—­’tis the doom, the curse of my birthright that is upon me.  Maiden!  I will but strike to thine heart, and then—­poor soul!” He shuddered; his voice grew tremulous and convulsed.  “The stricken one shall fall.  Hark! the hounds are again upon my track!” The well-practised ear of the hunted fugitive could discern the approach of footsteps long before they were audible to an ordinary listener:—­his eye and ear seemed on the stretch;—­his head bent forward in the same direction;—­he breathed not.  Even Constance seemed to suspend the current of her own thoughts at this interruption.