his hand on the door. At that very
moment Lucretia looked up, and saw him gliding from the tapestry; their
eyes met: his were fascinated as the bird's by the snake's. At the
sight, all her craft, her intellect, returned. With a glance, she
comprehended the terrible danger that awaited her. Before he was aware
of her movement, she was at his side; her hand on his own, her voice in
his ear.

"Stir not a step, utter not a sound, or you are--"

Beck did not suffer her to proceed. With the violence rather of fear
than of courage, he struck her to the ground; but she clung to him
still, and though rendered for the moment speechless by the suddenness
of the blow, her eyes took an expression of unspeakable cruelty and
fierceness. He struggled with all his might to shake her off; as he did
so, she placed feebly her other hand upon the wrist of the lifted arm
that had smitten her, and he felt a sharp pain, as if the nails had
fastened into the flesh. This but exasperated him to new efforts. He
extricated himself from her grasp, which relaxed as her lips writhed
into a smile of scorn and triumph, and, spurning her while she lay
before the threshold, he opened the door, sprang forward, and escaped.
No thought had he of tarrying in that House of Pelops, those human
shambles, of denouncing Murder in its lair; to fly to reach his master,
warn, and shield him,--that was the sole thought which crossed his
confused, bewildered brain.

It might be from four to five minutes that Lucretia, half-stunned,
half-senseless, lay upon those floors,--for besides the violence of her
fall, the shock of the struggle upon nerves weakened by the agony
of apprehension, occasioned by the imminent and unforeseen chance of
detection, paralyzed her wondrous vigour of mind and frame,--when Varney
entered.

"They tell me she sleeps," he said, in hoarse, muttered accents, before
he saw the prostrate form at his very feet. But Varney's step, Varney's
voice, had awakened Lucretia's reason to consciousness and the sense
of peril. Rising, though with effort, she related hurriedly what had
passed.

"Fly, fly!" she gasped, as she concluded. "Fly, to detain, to secrete,
this man somewhere for the next few hours. Silence him but till then;
I have done the rest!" and her finger pointed to the fatal ring. Varney
waited for no further words; he hurried out, and made at once to the
stables: his shrewdness conjectured that Beck would carry his tale
elsewhere. The gro