very time I came it appeared to
be once too often for her liking. She rejoined, 'The colonel has come
home, and he don't like company, so I advise you to make your call a
short one.' I assured her that I should measure the length of my visit
by the breadth of my will---- But good angels, Clara! what is the matter?
You look worse than death!" exclaimed Capitola, noticing for the first
time the pale, wild, despairing face of her companion.

Clara clasped her hands as if in prayer and raised her eyes with an
appealing gaze into Capitola's face.

"Tell me, dear Clara, what is the matter? How can I help you? What
shall I do for you?" said our heroine.

Before trusting herself to reply, Clara gazed wistfully into Capitola's
eyes, as though she would have read her soul.

Cap did not blanch nor for an instant avert her own honest, gray orbs;
she let Clara gaze straight down through those clear windows of the
soul into the very soul itself, where she found only truth, honesty and
courage.

The scrutiny seemed to be satisfactory for Clara soon took the hand of
her visitor and said:

"Capitola, I will tell you. It is a horrid, horrid story, but you shall
know all. Come with me to my chamber."

Cap pressed the hand that was so confidingly placed in hers and
accompanied Clara to her room, where, after the latter had taken the
precaution to lock the door, the two girls sat down for a confidential
talk.

Clara, like the author of Robin Hood's Barn, "began at the beginning"
of her story, and told everything--her betrothal to Traverse Rocke; the
sudden death of her father; the decision of the Orphans' Court; the
departure of Traverse for the far West; her arrival at the Hidden
House; the interruption of all her epistolary correspondence with her
betrothed and his mother; the awful and mysterious occurrences of that
dreadful night when she suspected some heinous crime had been
committed; and finally of the long, unwelcome suit of Craven Le Noir
and the present attempt to force him upon her as a husband.

Cap listened very calmly to this story, showing very little sympathy,
for there was not a bit of sentimentality about our Cap.

"And now," whispered Clara, while the pallor of horror overspread her
face, "by threatening me with a fate worse than death, they would drive
me to marry Craven Le Noir!"

"Yes, I know I would!" said Cap, as if speaking to herself, but by her
tone and manner clothing these simple words in the very