Read "The Star-Chamber, Volume 2" by William H. Ainsworth online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
As he approached the cottage a heavy presentiment of ill seized Sir Jocelyn. The place seemed to have lost its customary smiling air. No fair countenance beamed upon him from the casement; no light footsteps were heard hastening to the door; no one opened it to give him welcome. Could Aveline have fled'? -- or had some dire misfortune happened to her. Suspense was worse than certainty of ill: and after a moment's hesitation, he raised the latch, and with trembling footsteps crossed the threshold.
She was gone -- he could no longer doubt it. The disordered appearance of the chamber in which he found himself, with its furniture scattered about, seemed to tell of a struggle, and a forcible abduction. Nevertheless, though expecting no answer, he called forth her name in accents of wildest despair. She came not to his cries -- neither she nor her companion, Dame Sherborne, nor her faithful attendant old Anthony Rocke. All were gone. The house was indeed desolate.