alley, and overshadowed the mountains with purple wings that fanned
the still air into a breeze, until the moon followed it, and lulled
every thing to rest as with the laying-on of white and benedictory
hands. It was a lovely night; but Henry Rance, waiting impatiently
beneath a sycamore at the foot of the garden, saw no beauty in earth or
air or sky. A thousand suspicions common to a jealous nature, a vague
superstition of the spot, filled his mind with distrust and doubt.
"If this should be a trick to keep my hands off that insolent pup!" he
muttered. But, even as the thought passed his tongue, a white figure
slid from the shrubbery near the house, glided along the line of
picket-fence, and then stopped, midway, motionless in the moonlight.

It was she. But he scarcely recognized her in the white drapery that
covered her head and shoulders and breast. He approached her with a
hurried whisper. "Let us withdraw from the moonlight. Everybody can see
us here."

"We have nothing to say that cannot be said in the moonlight, Henry
Rance," she replied, coldly receding from his proffered hand. She
trembled for a moment, as if with a chill, and then suddenly turned upon
him. "Hold up your head, and let me look at you! I've known only what
men are: let me see what a traitor looks like!"

He recoiled more from her wild face than her words. He saw from the
first that her hollow cheeks and hollow eyes were blazing with fever. He
was no coward; but he would have fled.

"You are ill, Jenny," he said: "you had best return to the house.
Another time"--

"Stop!" she cried hoarsely. "Move from this spot, and I'll call for
help! Attempt to leave me now, and I'll proclaim you the assassin that
you are!"

"It was a fair fight," he said doggedly.

"Was it a fair fight to creep behind an unarmed and unsuspecting man?
Was it a fair fight to try to throw suspicion on some one else? Was it a
fair fight to deceive me? Liar and coward that you are!"

He made a stealthy step toward her with evil eyes, and a wickeder hand
that crept within his breast. She saw the motion; but it only stung her
to newer fury.

"Strike!" she said with blazing eyes, throwing her hands open before
him. "Strike! Are you afraid of the woman who dares you? Or do you keep
your knife for the backs of unsuspecting men? Strike, I tell you!
No? Look, then!" With a sudden movement, she tore from her head and
shoulders the thick lace shawl that had concealed her figure,