ABSTRACT
Avoiding the beaten track of Rouen, Wallace, (to whom Grimsby was now a most valuable auxiliary, being so well acquainted with every part of the country,) took a sequestered path by the banks of the Orne, and entered the extensive forest of Alencon just as the moon set. - Having ridden far and without cessation, Grimsby proposed for the lady's sake that they should alight, and allow her to repose awhile under the trees. - Helen was indeed nearly exhausted; though the idea that she was flying from a man she abhorred, and under the protection of the only man whom she could ever love, seemed to have absorbed her being into his, and by inspiring her with a strengtha which surprised even herself, had for a long time kept her insensible to any fatigue. While her friends pressed on with a speed which allowed of no more conversation than merely occasional inquiries of how she bore the journey, the swiftness of the motion, and the rapidity of the events which had brought her from the most frightful of situations into one of the dearest to her secret and hardly-breathed wishes, so bewildered her faculties that she almost feared she was only enjoying one of those dreams which since her captivity had often mocked her with the image of Wallace and her release; and every moment she feared to awake and find herself still the prisoner of De Valence, — 'I want no rest,' replied she to the observation of Grimsby, 'I could take none till we are beyond the possibility of being overtaken by my enemy.' - 'You are as safe in this wood, lady,' returned the soldier, 'as you can be in any place betwixt Galliard and Paris: it is many leagues from the chateau, and lies in so remote a direction, that I am sure, were the earl to pursue us, he would never chuse this path.' 'And did he even come up with us, dear Lady Helen,' said Wallace, 'could you fear when with your father's friend?' 'It is for my father's friend I fear,' gently answered she, 'I can have no dreads for myself, while under such protection.'
