on, and William endured pangs great as those of martyrdom itself, in the very arms of love. The tenth hour had struck, and now or never must his resolution be formed. Without intimating his intention, he rose and had reached the outside of the cottage before the mother could follow him. “Whither wouldst thou to-night, William?” said the good woman. “I shot a deer to-day, but forgot it in the forest,” was the hasty answer she received. In vain she called after him, and in vain Katherine’s voice entreated him to return; he was gone to dare his fate with all the determination of a man who feels that he must either do or perish
The moon was in the wane, and her dusky red orb rested on the horizon. Dark gloomy clouds flitted heavily across the sky. The birch-trees and aspens stood like ghosts in the forest, and the silver-poplars seemed to William like so many sheeted spectres beckoning him to retire. He trembled, and the unexpected manner in which his scheme had been interrupted on the two preceding nights, conjoined with the fall of the picture, now seemed to him as so many warnings designed by his tutelary angel to drive him from his desperate purpose.
Once more William’s heart misgave him, and he was on the point of returning, when a voice seemed to whisper into his ear—“Fool! hast thou not already accepted of the assistance thou wouldst now shun when thou needest it most?” He stood still for a moment, and at the same instant, the moon emerging from behind a dark cloud, threw her cheerful light on Bertram’s hut in the distance. William could mark Katherine’s window glancing under the silvery rays, and he stretched out his arms towards it, as if he wished to clasp his fair one to his bosom, but a passing breeze bore the sound of the half-hour to his ear, and he tore himself away from the spot, exclaiming inwardly: “Fool, away! away to business! It is worse than childish weakness thus to hesitate;—shall I sacrifice the main advantage, having already perilled all—perhaps my salvation? No! away! I will dare the worst!”
