To use your own nautical phrases,
'From whence came ye, pray?' and 'whither are ye bound?'"
A low, deep voice replied:
"From Sunderland, last, and bound, overland, to Whitehaven."
This simple and direct answer was hardly given, before the attention of
the listeners was called to Alice Dunscombe, who uttered a faint shriek,
and rose from her seat involuntarily, while her eyes seemed to roll
fearfully, and perhaps a little wildly, round the room.
"Are you ill, Miss Alice?" said the sweet, soothing tones of Cecilia
Howard; "you are, indeed you are: lean on me, that I may lead you to
your apartment."
"Did you hear it, or was it only fancy?" she answered, her cheek
blanched to the whiteness of death, and her whole frame shuddering as if
in convulsions; "say, did you hear it, too?"
"I have heard nothing but the voice of my uncle, who is standing near
you, anxious, as we all are, for your recovery from this dreadful
agitation."
Alice still gazed wildly from face to face. Her eye did not rest
satisfied with dwelling on those who surrounded her, but surveyed, with
a sort of frantic eagerness, the figures and appearance of the three
men, who stood in humble patience, the silent and unmoved witnesses of
this extraordinary scene. At length she veiled her eyes with both her
hands, as if to shut out some horrid vision, and then removing them, she
smiled languidly, as she signed for Cecilia to assist her from the room.
To the polite and assiduous offers of the gentlemen, she returned no
other thanks than those conveyed in her looks and gestures; but when the
sentinels who paced the gallery were passed, and the ladies were alone,
she breathed a long, shivering sigh, and found an utterance.
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