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fore she issued forth, the guide turned and faced her follower.

"Throw down the sword!" she said, pointing towards the ground, and assuming a tone and manner of the most absolute authority.

"Command me no longer!-but lead onward if you will;" answered Sir William, with determined defiance.

"Cast the sword from your hand!" she repeated, standing full in the doorway, and so blocking up all exit, save by a decisive and rude contact with her person.

But no puny terrors could unnerve the man who had thus far followed her. She darted forward; he waved his weapon; she stirred not; he aimed at her a stroke that, if it had told, must have proved whether or not she was flesh and blood; but the taper she held became extinguished and in utter darkness, for the hall-sconce had burnt out. She evaded his cut. The door, however, was still open, and gave an unobstructed view of the less positive gloom abroad. Sir William sprang through it. There was a slight scream as he passed the threshold, and a shot rung close behind him, and he heard, almost felt, the whiz of the ball by his cheek; still he was unhurt, and still onward

he bounded. The single sentinel at the outward gate soon yielded to his impetuous and furious attack; he gained the streets of Enniscorthy; the shout of alarm arose at his heels. A yeoman was leading a horse along; he forced the animal from him, jumped into the saddle, swept like the whirlwind through the little town, and, in less than an hour, pulled up before the house where that morning he had received the hand of Eliza Hartley.

CHAPTER X.

THE liberated bridegroom pulled up before Hartley Court, vaulted from his saddle, and allowed the reeking horse to take his own course over the lawn; yet, furious as had been his wishes and his speed to enter as well as to gain the house of hope, he did not at once approach the hall-door. After measureing the old mansion with one glance, as if to assure himself of its identity and proximity, he leaned his back against a tree, and while his left hand touched the hilt of the pistol he had hidden in his bosom, and the other still grasped Saunders Smyly's sword, the young Baronet's brow fell blacker than the starless night above him, and his teeth grated against each other, -the clenched jaws moving backward and forward to the disagreeable sound.

At intervals there came muttered words from his parched lips. "I may-I may have the

chance first! Ere I lie at his feet, he may writhe at mine! Curses on me that I have hitherto avoided him! That I should be held

back by man- -or by woman either-even by Eliza Hartley! Ay! ay! I see it plainlyhe has his trammels around me! This night it must be or she is lost to me for ever! Lost, as I am lost! That traitor-villain, Brown !O that he stood at arm's length before me!" -and, springing to action, he made a furious thrust at another tree near him.

"But, come! mine this night she is! There, at least, I fail him! Mine this night she is! though in despair and revenge, as much as in love, I woo her to our marriage-bed: and though dark be the forms that hover round it-grief, terror, death,-unfitting inmates of a bridal chamber!-beloved! I come, I come! I come, alone and unattended-through danger and darkness from scenes of fear and horror— I come to claim my bride! Silent and dull is the house of love-" he again regarded it, more steadily than before-" its black windows emitting no festive light-no laugh and no mirthful measure responding within its walls to the throb of the bridegroom's heartno voice welcoming him but the howl of the

nightdog, who wails, perhaps the eternal absence of his old master-yet thus I come, beloved, I come!" He bounded to the halldoor, in a state of mind which, as may be concluded from his words, bordered upon insanity, and, seizing the massive knocker, rang a loud peal. Nothing answered him but the reverberation of the sound,-first through the edifice, then echoed from a distance behind him. In frantic misgiving he repeated his summons, and again echo only replied to it.

"Hah! not here! torn from me! so soon! this moment in his grasp, perhaps! his poisoned tales whispered in her ear! No, no,it cannot, must not be! Madness---hell is in the thought !---open, wretches open!" He once more gave his voice challenge. "Yield, then, churlish door!" He rushed against it with frantic force; but only recoiled, and fell from the shock. He tried the windows, shattering their glass to get at the shutters within; event these were too strongly barricadoed to yield to his arm. He hastened to walk round the mansion. Through a small back-window, he thought he perceived a ray of light; but as he raced nearer, either his eyes had deceived him, or it had become extinguished. The

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