"It was----" said old Hurricane, stooping and whispering a name that was
heard by no one but the sick woman.

She nodded again, with a look of intense meaning.

"Does your old hostess here, Hat, know or suspect anything of this
story?" inquired Major Warfield.

"Not a word! No soul but yourself has heard it!"

"That is right! Still be discreet! If you would have the wicked punished
and the innocent protected, be silent and wary. Have no anxiety about
the girl. What man can do for her will I do and quickly! And now, good
creature, day is actually dawning. You must seek repose. And I must call
the parson in and return home. I will send Mrs. Condiment over with
food, wine, medicine, clothing and every comfort that your condition
requires," said Old Hurricane, rising and calling in the clergyman, with
whom he soon after left the hut for home.

They reached Hurricane Hall in time for an early breakfast, which the
astonished housekeeper had prepared, and for which their night's
adventures had certainly given them a good appetite.

Major Warfield kept his word, and as soon as breakfast was over he
dispatched Mrs. Condiment with a carriage filled with provisions for the
sick woman. But they were not needed. In a couple of hours the
housekeeper returned with the intelligence that the old nurse was dead.
The false strength of mental excitement that had enabled her to tell so
long and dreadful a tale had been the last flaring up of the flame of
life that almost immediately went out.

"I am not sorry, upon the whole, for now I shall have the game in my own
hands!" muttered Old Hurricane to himself. "Ah! Gabrielle Le Noir,
better you had cast yourself down from the highest rock of this range
and been dashed to pieces below, than have thus fallen into my power!"

CHAPTER III.

THE QUEST.

Then did Sir Knight abandon dwelling
And out he rode.
--Hudibras.

Pursuant to the orders of Major Warfield, the corpse of the old midwife
was the next day after her decease brought over and quietly interred in
the family graveyard of Hurricane Hall.

And then Major Warfield astonished his household by giving orders to his
housekeeper and his body-servant to prepare his wardrobe and pack his
trunks for a long journey to the north.

"What can the major be thinking of, to be setting out for the north at
this time of the year?" exclaimed good little Mrs. Condiment, as she
picked