tween each quarter as it rang from the great clock on the Watch Tower seemed interminable. The air of the room was sweet and fragrant; a warm, hushed stillness pervaded all things, disturbed only by an occasional restless movement from the bed or the comfortable murmur of the fire as it blazed up the wide chimney. At last is it possible that he has been weak enough to yield to the drowsy influence of the hour?-Ralph rouses himself with a start. The cry of a screech-owl whirring past the casement sounds mournfully in his ear; a gust of wind sweeps by, beating the loose ivy against the panes, and the clock strikes two! For the third time he looks out. The fire has sunk low, and burns red and hot upon the hearth; the candle is out, and the deep, regular breathing in the room seems to show that Lord Rotherhame is at last asleep. Ralph stretches his head out further, and, straining his eyes through the obscurity, discerns the papers lying together in a heap on the pillow by his father's cheek. Could he have dropped off unawares? Would he consciously have run the risk of some one entering and handling them while he slept ? His eyes are fast closed. Ralph, knowing how light a sleeper he is, and that now has come the moment to make his final venture, steals out, slips off his boots, and crawls across the room. His reflection in the tall mirror startles him; it is like a wild animal crouching! His heart beats so loud as he reaches the bed that he fears its thump will arouse the sleeper. But no! But no! God Himself has sealed those eyes, and the unconscious man lies wrapped in deep oblivion. Instant and stealthy as a cat, Ralph grasps his booty! It is in his hand! He hides it within his waistcoat, but his father neither moves nor speaks. Back now to the door he creeps, dragging his body like a snake along the floor. He has crossed the room, has reached the door, and now, half raising himself, is seizing the handle with firm and gentle grasp. "Father, father, get into my bed! There is a gose running about the room-I have been watching it a long time, it wanted to bite too!" cries a plaintive, childish voice. Ralph, with big drops upon his brow and starting eyes, turns his head, and beholds little Edward sitting up, grasping his crib with both hands, and gazing, his cheeks scarlet, and his bright hair dishevelled, on his brother's crouching form. That is the last object that leaves a distinct impress on his mind. Then all is bewilderment. He has opened the door, and is in the picture gallery, across which, white and weird, the pale moonlight is streaming. There is a spring, a cry, a rush, his ears are filled with a hubbub of confused noises, his feet hardly touch the ground; he is flying for something more than life. Down the stairs, along the passages, down again, doubling here and there, crossing suites of empty rooms, and behind-nearing and nearing, the pursuer's feet! He sees before him an unshuttered casement-the window of the steward's room, some fifteen feet above the ground. The heavy door slams behind him, he flings an oaken chest against it with almost supernatural strength-he has gained a minute, and while they are battering at the door behind him, he throws up the sash and looks out. The stars are shining down on the flat, hard paving-stones, the height is sheer, it is an ugly prospect. Ralph stands upon the windowsill, looks down, hesitates and turns his head. The chest is being pushed back, and the door yielding to the pressure from without. Quickly he lets himself down, clinging to the windowsill, clutching the ivy which here creeps along the wall. Then he drops. There is a crash, and suddenly the stone pavement seems to heave beneath him, the sky to turn upside down, the solid Castle walls to lurch forward as if to crush him. But urgent necessity will not suffer him to lie stunned. He springs to his feet, sees a figure leaning far out of the window above, hears a cry whose meaning hə does not understand, rushes forward across the moat, and is out of the Castle precincts. A howling of dogs falls on his ear—in a moment he is surrounded by a yelping, growling throng. One, more savage than the rest, fastens its long fangs in his arm, but the well-known voice of the young master stills them all at once-Norna lets loose her prey, and he is free. Onward he rushestrees, roads, fields, cottages, seem to fly from him as he goes-now through the river, now across the meadows, now over hedges and ditches, until at last he enters, like a hunted deer, a deep thicket of whispering trees. There, in the depth of the sweet, cool glade, drenched with dews and beheld only by the solitary eye of the moon walking in brightness, he sinks exhausted, powerless to go further. With trembling fingers he takes out the rescued documents, and by the faint light quivering through the branches begins to read. But what words are these that meet his gaze Sentences not of law or pedigree, but of love -sweet, tender, passionate, deep. Good God! he throws them down, and with swimming head and bursting heart sinks crushed among the tall, wet bracken-he has stolen his mother's love-letters! ? CHAPTER VII. Calm and deep peace in this wide air, TENNYSON. SOUND asleep in the opposite extremity of the building to the tower in which Lord Rotherhame had fixed his solitary abode, Geraldine lay all through that eventful night, peacefully unconscious of the exciting scenes enacting close to her. Nor did she dream in the morning as she traversed the staircases and galleries which led to the breakfast-room, that one of the closed doors she passed concealed a prisoner. Josceline Carr never in all his after life forgot the moment when his former host came upon him, wandering like an unquiet spirit up and down the dreary length of the hidden dungeons. His nerves had well nigh given way beneath the strain, and unable through superstitious panic and feverish impatience to remain quietly where Ralph had left him, he had passed three solitary hours of horror in pacing slowly the narrow area of his prison. Not daring to look behind him lest the ugly features of the lately dead should grin over his shoulder, and afraid to pass the closed door of the deathchamber, it had been for the moment almost |