the ruined keep, and observed the familiar features of the spirit of
your great-grandfather at his usual post. But nothing beyond these
trifles, my Selina. Nothing more, love, absolutely nothing."

The young man turned his dark liquid orbs fondly upon the ingenuous
face of his betrothed.

"My own Edgardo!--and you still love me? You still would marry me in
spite of this dark mystery which surrounds me? In spite of the fatal
history of my race? In spite of the ominous predictions of my aged
nurse?"

"I would, Selina"; and the young man passed his arm around her yielding
waist. The two lovers gazed at each other's faces in unspeakable
bliss. Suddenly Selina started.

"Leave me, Edgardo! leave me! A mysterious something--a fatal
misgiving--a dark ambiguity--an equivocal mistrust oppresses me. I
would be alone!"

The young man arose, and cast a loving glance on the lady. "Then we
will be married on the seventeenth."

"The seventeenth," repeated Selina, with a mysterious shudder.

They embraced and parted. As the clatter of hoofs in the court-yard
died away, the Lady Selina sank into the chair she had just quitted.

"The seventeenth," she repeated slowly, with the same fateful shudder.
"Ah!--what if he should know that I have another husband living? Dare
I reveal to him that I have two legitimate and three natural children?
Dare I repeat to him the history of my youth? Dare I confess that at
the age of seven I poisoned my sister, by putting verdigris in her
cream-tarts,--that I threw my cousin from a swing at the age of twelve?
That the lady's-maid who incurred the displeasure of my girlhood now
lies at the bottom of the horse-pond? No! no! he is too pure,--too
good,--too innocent, to hear such improper conversation!" and her whole
body writhed as she rocked to and fro in a paroxysm of grief.

But she was soon calm. Rising to her feet, she opened a secret panel
in the wall, and revealed a slow-match ready for lighting.

"This match," said the Lady Selina, "is connected with a mine beneath
the western tower, where my three children are confined; another branch
of it lies under the parish church, where the record of my first
marriage is kept. I have only to light this match and the whole of my
past life is swept away!" she approached the match with a lighted
candle.

But a hand was laid upon her arm, and with a shriek the Lady Selina
fell on her knees before the spectre of Sir Guy.

CHAPTER