CHAPTER XXI.
WHO APPEARED TO MARY ASHWOODE AS SHE SATE UNDER THE TREES—THE CHAMPION.
With flashing eyes and a swelling heart, struck dumb with unutterable indignation, the beautiful girl stood fixed in the attitude in which his last words had reached her, while the enraged and unmanly old fop hobbled away, with the ease and grace with which a crippled ape might move over a hot griddle. He had disappeared for some minutes before she had recovered herself sufficiently to think or speak.
“If he were by my side,” she said, “this noble lord dared not have used me thus. Edmond would have died a thousand deaths first. But oh! God look upon me, for his love is gone from me, and I am now a poor, grieved, desolate creature, with none to help me.”
Thus saying, she sate herself down upon the grass
