ime!"

In an agitation of spirit, not to be calmed, Maria began to write to
Darnford. She called him by the sacred name of "husband," and bade him
"hasten to her, to share her fortune, or she would return to him."--An
hotel in the Adelphi was the place of rendezvous.

The letter was sealed and given in charge; and with light footsteps, yet
terrified at the sound of them, she descended, scarcely breathing, and
with an indistinct fear that she should never get out at the garden gate.
Jemima went first.

A being, with a visage that would have suited one possessed by a devil,
crossed the path, and seized Maria by the arm. Maria had no fear but of
being detained--"Who are you? what are you?" for the form was scarcely
human. "If you are made of flesh and blood," his ghastly eyes glared on
her, "do not stop me!"

"Woman," interrupted a sepulchral voice, "what have I to do with
thee?"--Still he grasped her hand, muttering a curse.

"No, no; you have nothing to do with me," she exclaimed, "this is a
moment of life and death!"--

With supernatural force she broke from him, and, throwing her arms round
Jemima, cried, "Save me!" The being, from whose grasp she had loosed
herself, took up a stone as they opened the door, and with a kind of
hellish sport threw it after them. They were out of his reach.

When Maria arrived in town, she drove to the hotel already fixed on. But
she could not sit still--her child was ever before her; and all that had
passed during her confinement, appeared to be a dream. She went to the
house in the suburbs, where, as she now discovered, her babe had been
sent. The moment she entered, her heart grew sick; but she wondered not
that it had proved its grave. She made the necessary enquiries, and the
church-yard was pointed out, in which it rested under a turf. A little
frock which the nurse's child wore (Maria had made it herself) caught her
eye. The nurse was glad to sell it for half-a-guinea, and Maria hastened
away with the relic, and, re-entering the hackney-coach which waited for
her, gazed on it, till she reached her hotel.

She then waited on the attorney who had made her uncle's will, and
explained to him her situation. He readily advanced her some of the
money which still remained in his hands, and promised to take the whole
of the case into consideration. Maria only wished to be permitted to
remain in quiet--She found that several bills, apparently with her
signature, had been presented t