eing tied on, and my throat muffled in a veil, by the
dexterous fingers of Lady Anastasia.

When this process was completed, she stooped down and kissed me, and I
felt a hot tear fall upon my cheek as she rose again. In the next moment
I was clinging to the captain's arm, with a spasmodic feeling of relief
for which I could ill account. We passed across the plank which
connected the ship with the shore in utter darkness, guided by a
twinkling light far ahead, borne by a seaman, reached the dusky quay,
with its few flaring lamps, made dim by drizzling rain and summer mist,
and before many minutes we paused before one of a long line of coaches.

The captain handed me in, then, standing before the open door, seemed to
await the coming of some other person before taking his own place--the
dreaded Clayton, I knew; but I could not remonstrate against what seemed
an ordinary courtesy, and perhaps a step suggested by his innate notions
of propriety.

At any other time I might have agreed with him; but, feeble as I was,
and still bewildered, my whole object seemed to be to escape from the
sphere and power of those women, who had been most kind to me, yet whom
I instinctively dreaded and abhorred.

They came together, the mother and daughter, in their travesty of
mistress and maid--enough of itself to excite suspicion of foul
play--and climbed up the rickety steps of the hackney-coach, rejoicing
over their victim. It mattered not; the captain would make the fourth
passenger, and in his shadow I felt there were strength and security.

"What are you waiting for, Captain Van Dorne?" I had just feebly asked,
as the door snapped-to, and the driver mounted his box. A hand was
thrust through the window for all reply, and a card dropped upon my lap,
which I hastened to secure in the depths of my pocket. By the merest
chance, I found it there on the morrow, and later I comprehended its
import, so mysterious to me at the moment of perusal.

"My poor young lady, you must forgive me for disappointing you,
and hidin' the truth, for your own sake. May God bless and
restore you, and bring you to a proper sense of his mercies, is
the prayer of your servant to command,

"JOSEPH VAN DORNE."

My frame of mind was a very different one when I read this scrawl, from
that which bewildered and oppressed me on that never-to-be-forgotten
night of suffering and distress, both mental and physical. Formed of
those elements which