ed close among the evil things
in his heart.

CHAPTER LIX.

A STORM IN THE WOODS.

And Lina wandered off, deep, deep into the woods--her head aching with
overcharged thought, her heart lying wounded and cold in her bosom. Hour
after hour she toiled on, wild with the pain of her new sorrow. It
seemed to her that intense action could only bring rest. Thus, she
clambered hill after hill, drew herself up the steep face of many a rock
that, at another time, would have defied her efforts, and waded,
knee-deep, in drifts of dead leaves that choked up the hollows.
Sometimes she would stop suddenly, out of breath, and panting with the
fatigue of her aimless exertions. But after looking wildly about, as if
in fear of pursuit, she would dart off again, perhaps retreading the
rough path she had left. At last, she sat down, exhausted, at the foot
of a tree, and looked around in bitter despair as she saw the woods
darken overhead, and felt a soft storm of snow flakes floating dreamily
over her.

The poor child was numb and cold. Her very breath seemed turning to ice
upon her lips. But for the little hound that crept up to her bosom, and
lay patiently there, with its slender head laid upon her shoulder, and
its limbs trembling with the cold, she would have perished. But the
warmth from this little animal's body kept the vitality in her poor
heart, and instead of death, a drowsiness fell upon her, which would
perhaps have ended in a wakeless sleep. But just as she was sinking away
into that deathly torpor from which few are aroused, a female figure
came, floating like a dark bird of prey, through the storm, now obscured
by the thick interlacing of naked branches, and again dimmed in her
approach by the veil of virgin snow-flakes that filled the air.

The hound lifted its slender head, gave a faint whine and lay down again
motionless, but with his vigilant eyes on the shadowy figure that
approached. That pale face was evidently known to the dog, or he would
not have rested there so peacefully, though it moved through the falling
snow, like a phantom which might disappear with the slightest sound.

Close to the prostrate girl it came--that sinister, white face--and the
figure stooped from under the folds of its black and ample cloak, to
whisper in the cold ear of Lina French.

"Go to the house upon the hill-side. There your mother is waiting for
you."

Lina struggled like one aroused from the thrall of a nightmare. The