said the priest.

And then, looking at the man before him, he added immediately, in an
unconcerned tone,

"She wants to know what time it is, and I told her two o'clock. That's
right, isn't it?"

"About right," said the man.

Now that was a lie, but whether it was justifiable or not may be left
to others to decide.

As for Ethel, an immense load of anxiety was lifted off her mind, and
she began to breathe more freely.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

THE DEMON WIFE.

When Dacres was overpowered by his assailants no mercy was shown him.
His hands were bound tight behind him, and kicks and blows were
liberally bestowed during the operation. Finally, he was pushed and
dragged into the house, and up stairs to the room already mentioned.
There he was still further secured by a tight rope around his ankles,
after which he was left to his own meditations.

Gloomy and bitter and fierce, indeed, were those meditations. His body
was covered with bruises, and though no bones were broken, yet his
pain was great. In addition to this the cords around his wrists and
ankles were very tight, and his veins seemed swollen to bursting. It
was difficult to get an easy position, and he could only lie on his
side or on his face. These bodily pains only intensified the
fierceness of his thoughts and made them turn more vindictively than
ever upon the subject of his wife.

She was the cause of all this, he thought. She had sacrificed every
thing to her love for her accursed paramour. For this she had betrayed
him, and her friends, and the innocent girl who was her companion. All
the malignant feelings which had filled his soul through the day now
swelled within him, till he was well-nigh mad. Most intolerable of all
was his position now--the baffled enemy. He had come as the avenger,
he had come as the destroyer; but he had been entrapped before he had
struck his blow, and here he was now lying, defeated, degraded, and
humiliated! No doubt he would be kept to afford sport to his
enemy--perhaps even his wife might come to gloat over his sufferings,
and feast her soul with the sight of his ruin. Over such thoughts as
these he brooded, until at last he had wrought himself into something
like frenzy, and with the pain that he felt, and the weariness that
followed the fatigues of that day, these thoughts might finally have
brought on madness, had they gone on without any thing to disturb
them.

But all these thoughts and ravings were destin