"Wool, so your old master says if you don't keep your eyes on me he'll
cut your eyelids off?"

"Ye--ye--yes, miss," sobbed Wool.

"Did he say if you didn't listen to me he'd cut your ears off?"

"N--n--no, miss."

"Did he swear if you didn't talk to me he'd cut out your tongue out?"

"N--n--no, miss."

"Well, now, stop howling and listen to me! Since, at the peril of your
eyelids, you are obliged to keep me in sight, I give you leave to ride
just within view of me, but no nearer, and you are never to let me see
or hear you, if you can help it for I like to be alone."

"I'll do anything in this world for peace, Miss Caterpillar," said poor
Wool.

And upon this basis the affair was finally settled. And no doubt
Capitola owed much of her personal safety to the fact that Wool kept
his eyes open.

While these scenes were going on at Hurricane Hall, momentous events
were taking place elsewhere, which require another chapter for their
development.

CHAPTER VIII.

ANOTHER MYSTERY AT THE HIDDEN HOUSE.

"Hark! what a shriek was that of fear intense,
Of horror and amazement!
What fearful struggle to the door and thence
With mazy doubles to the grated casement!"

An hour after the departure of Capitola, Colonel Le Noir returned to
the Hidden House and learned from his man David that upon the preceding
evening a young girl of whose name he was ignorant had sought shelter
from the storm and passed the night at the mansion.

Now, Colonel Le Noir was extremely jealous of receiving strangers under
his roof, never, during his short stay at the Hidden House, going out
into company, lest he should be obliged in return to entertain
visitors. And when he learned that a strange girl had spent the night
beneath his roof, he frowningly directed that Dorcas should be sent to
him.

When his morose manager made her appearance he harshly demanded the
name of the young woman she had dared to receive beneath his roof.

Now, whether there is any truth in the theory of magnetism or not, it
is certain that Dorcas Knight--stern, harsh, resolute woman that she
was toward all others--became as submissive as a child in the presence
of Colonel Le Noir.

At his command she gave him all the information he required, not even
withholding the fact of Capitola's strange story of having seen the
apparition of the pale-faced lady in her chamber, together with the
subsequent discovery of the loss of her ring.

Co