nding the full length of
the house, which was a kind of sitting-room, and into it opened all three
of the bed-rooms, two at the side and one at the end. There was a rude
chamber above these rooms, furnished with beds; for old Sampson's was a
rendezvous for thieves and pickpockets, who often assembled there in
considerable numbers, rendering it necessary for him to have these various
accommodations for their benefit. Old Sampson himself was an outlaw, and
many a murder had been committed in his house, and always in the room
occupied by Hadley, with which there was a secret communication, and
beneath it a vault for the reception of the dead bodies of his victims,
until such time as they could be removed without detection.

With this brief explanation, we return to the thread of the narrative.

When Eveline heard the voice of the stranger, she was struck with its
peculiarity, but, as it was louder than she had been used to hear Hadley
speak, she did not recognize it, and the few brief words she afterward
heard him utter, were too indistinctly heard by her to elicit the truth.
When, however, she heard that well-known voice thanking the men for their
kindness, she recognized it in a moment, and but for the fact that he was
just retiring, she would have rushed out and thrown herself in his arms.

Hadley had not long been gone, when she heard a low murmuring of voices
back of her room, and noiselessly approaching the side of her apartment
nearest the speakers, she placed her ear to a crevice in the logs, and
listened.

"I don't want to go to extremes unless there is good reason to believe he
has considerable money about him."

These words, spoken by the host, were the first she heard distinctly.

"I think there is no doubt on that point," was the reply, "for to my
certain knowledge he has just inherited an estate from a rich uncle."

"Has he indeed? Then he may be worth plucking. But can we rely on your
companion?"

"Oh yes; Dick is true as steel. He will not take an active part in the
affair, because he does not like my taking the girl, on one side, and for
the reason that Hadley has never wronged him, on the other, but he will be
as far from betraying us as we ourselves; I will answer for him there."

Dick! Hadley! In the quickness of the lightning's flash, the whole truth
beamed into Eveline's soul. Her pretended guides were none other than
Duffel's accomplices, and the plotters, afterward, of her own destruction,