t. Ah, give me
your hand, Corilla. Yet a few moments and the fairest woman on earth is
mine!"

Light as a gazelle, timid and trembling, Natalie had fled the crowd, and
now, stepping out into the garden, she breathed easier, it seeming to
her that she had escaped a danger.

"This night air will cool and refresh me, and I shall soon succeed in
finding Paulo," thought she, constantly wandering farther and farther
into the garden. But the brightness of the illuminated alleys annoyed
her. A more obscure and secluded path opening, Natalie entered it.
Ah, she needed solitude and stillness, and what knew she, this simple,
harmless child of Nature--what knew she whether it was proper and seemly
for a young woman thus alone to venture into these dark walks? She knew
not that she incurred any risk, or that one needed protection among
people!

Even farther resounded the noise of the festival--the clang of the music
sounded fainter and fainter. Natalie wandered farther and farther, happy
because alone!

Alone? What, then, was it that noiselessly and cautiously haunted her
steps, following every movement she made, constantly nearing her the
farther she found herself, as she supposed, from all other living
beings? What was it inaudibly creeping through the bushes, even its dark
shadow imperceptible, that followed her like a ghost?

It became stiller and stiller, and nearer crept the gloomy form that
lurked in her steps. Now with a sudden spring he rushes upon the maiden.
What gleams in his hand? It is a dagger. He swings it high, that he
may sink it deep. Then some one rushes from the bushes, seizes the
murderer's arm, wrests the dagger from his hand, hurls him to the earth,
and a dear, well-known voice cries: "Fly, Natalie, fly quickly to Count
Paulo! This serpent will no longer follow you! I have him fast, the
assassin!"

And Carlo broke out into a happy and triumphant laugh.

Natalie made no answer, she was paralyzed with terror; there was a
roaring in her ears, it darkened before her eyes, and she fell senseless
to the earth!

But her disarmed murderer sought to free himself from Carlo's grasp.
Struggling with his captor, he finally succeeded in half rising. Carlo
thought not of his own danger, but only of Natalie's, and it was only
on her account that he now loudly called for help, at the same time
exerting a superhuman strength to hold on upon his prisoner.

Voices were heard, lights approached, and Paulo's cry of an