r
mistress a small note, brought by a peasant lad; and within an hour
the boy went thence, the bearer of a billet, blistered and wet with
tears.

And Blanche crept away unheeded to her chamber, and threw herself upon
her knees, and prayed fervently and long; and casting herself upon her
painful bed, at last wept herself to sleep.

The morning dawned, merry and clear, and lightsome; and all the face
of nature smiled gladly in the merry sunbeams.

At the first peep of dawn Blanche started from her restless slumbers,
dressed herself hastily, and creeping down the stairs with a cautious
step, unbarred a postern door, darted out into the free air, without
casting a glance behind her, and fled, with all the speed of mingled
love and terror, down the green avenue toward the gay pavilion--scene
of so many happy hours.

But again she was watched by an envious eye, and followed by a jealous
foot.

For scarce ten minutes had elapsed from the time when she issued from
the postern, before Agnes appeared on the threshold, with her dark
face livid and convulsed with passion; and after pausing a moment, as
if in hesitation, followed rapidly in the footsteps of her sister.

When Blanche reached the summer-house, it was closed and untenanted;
but scarcely had she entered and cast open the blinds of one window
toward the road, before a hard horse-tramp was heard coming up at full
gallop, and in an instant George Delawarr pulled up his panting
charger in the lane, leaped to the ground, swung himself up into the
branches of the great oak-tree, and climbing rapidly along its gnarled
limbs, sprang down on the other side, rushed into the building, and
cast himself at his mistress' feet.

Agnes was entering the far end of the elm-tree walk as he sprang down
into the little coplanade, but he was too dreadfully preoccupied with
hope and anguish, and almost despair, to observe any thing around him.

But she saw him, and fearful that she should be too late to arrest
what she supposed to be the lovers' flight, she ran like the wind.

She neared the doorway--loud voices reached her ears, but whether in
anger, or in supplication, or in sorrow, she could not distinguish.

Then came a sound that rooted her to the ground on which her flying
foot was planted, in mute terror.

The round ringing report of a pistol-shot! and ere its echo had begun
to die away, another!

No shriek, no wail, no word succeeded--all was as silent as the grave.