emotion, she wept. “Do you already repent the step you have taken?” said he, laying a strange emphasis on the word—already. “No, love, no!” replied Isidora, gently wiping away her tears; “it is impossible for me ever to repent it. But this loneliness,—this darkness,—this speed,—this silence,—have in them something almost awful. I feel as if I were traversing some unknown region. Are these indeed the winds of heaven that sigh around me? Are these trees of nature’s growth, that nod at me like spectres? How hollow and dismal is the sound of the blast!—it chills me though the night is sultry!—and those trees, they cast their shadows over my soul! Oh, is this like a bridal night?” she exclaimed, as Melmoth, apparently disturbed at these words, attempted to hurry her on—“Is this like a bridal? No father, no brother, to support me!—no mother near me!—no kiss of kindred to greet me!—no congratulating friends!”—and her fears increasing, she wildly exclaimed,  “Where is the priest to bless our union?—where is the church under whose roof we are to be united?”

“As she spoke, Melmoth, drawing her arm under his, attempted to lead her gently forward. “There is,” said he, “a ruined monastery near—you may have observed it from your window.”—“No! I never saw it. Why is it in ruins?”—“I know not—there were wild stories told. It was said the Superior, or Prior, or—I know not what—had looked into certain books, the perusal of which was not altogether sanctioned by the rules of his order—books of magic they called them. There was much noise about it, I remember, and some talk of the Inquisition,—but the end of the business was, the Prior disappeared, some said into the prisons of the Inquisition, some said into safer custody—(though how that could be, I cannot well conceive)—and the brethren were drafted into other communities, and the building became deserted. There were some offers made for it by the communities of other religious houses, but the evil, though vague and wild reports, that had gone forth about it, deterred them, on inquiry, from inhabiting it,—and gradually the building fell to ruin. It still retains all that can sanctify it in the eyes of the faithful. There are crucifixes and tomb-stones, and here and there a cross set up where there has been murder,—for, by a singular congeniality of taste, a banditti has fixed their seat there now,—and the traffic of gold for souls, once carried on so profitably by the former inmates, is exchanged for that of souls for gold, by the present.”

“At these words, Melmoth felt the slender arm that hung on his withdrawn,—and he perceived that his victim, between shuddering and struggling, had shrunk from his hold. “But 

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