there
among the crowd this evening, gazing upon that bleeding and dying woman,
until the sight of her ghastly form and face seemed to affect me as the
Medusa's head was said to have affected the beholder, and turn me into
stone. Clement, I was so petrified that I could not move or speak, even
when she appealed to us all to know whether any among us could believe
her to be capable of such an act. I could not speak; I could not move.
She must have thought that I too condemned her, and I cannot bear to
rest under that suspicion of hers. I must go to her now, Clement."

"Indeed you must not, Trix. Wait till she makes her appearance: that
will be time enough," answered her brother.

"Oh, this is a horrible night; I wish it were over. I cannot go to bed;
nobody can. The ladies are all sitting huddled together in the
dressing-room, although the fire has gone out; and the servants are all
gathered in the kitchen, too panic-stricken to do anything. Oh, an awful
night! I wish it were morning."

"It will soon be daylight now, dear Beatrix. You had better go and
rejoin your companions."

And so the brother and sister separated for the night; Beatrix going to
sit and shudder with the other ladies in the dressing-room, and Clement
returning to the parlor to lounge and doze among the gentlemen.

Only his anxiety for Sybil's safety so much disturbed his repose, that
if he did but drop into an instant's slumber he started from it in a
vague fright. So the small hours of the morning wore on and brought the
dull, drizzly, wintry daylight.

Meanwhile Lyon and Sybil Berners rode on through mist and rain.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE HAUNTED CHAPEL.

"The chapel was a ruin old,
That stood so low, in lonely glen.
The gothic windows high and dark
Were hung with ivy, brier, and yew."

The Haunted Chapel to which Mr. and Mrs. Berners were going was in a
dark and lonely gorge on the other side of the mountain across Black
River, but near its rise in the Black Torrent. To reach the chapel, they
would have to ride three miles up the shore and ford the river, and then
pass over the opposite mountain. The road was as difficult and dangerous
as it was lonely and unfrequented.

Lyon and Sybil rode on together in silence, bending their heads before
the driving mist, and keeping close to the banks of the river until they