ewed upon the floor. He was evidently
arrested in the act of destruction, for one hand grasped the distaff,
the other clinched something which he sought to conceal in the folds of
his cloak.

Miss Thusa, partly raised on her elbow, which shook and trembled from
the weight it supported, was gazing with impotent despair on her
dismembered wheel. A dim fire quivered in her sunken eyes, and her
sharpened and prominent features were made still more ghastly by the
opaque frame-work of white linen that surrounded them. She was uttering
faint and broken ejaculations.

"Monster--robber!--my treasure! Take the gold--take it, but spare my
wheel! Poor Helen! I gave it to her! Poor child! It's she you are
robbing, not me! Oh, my God! my heart-strings are breaking! My wheel,
that I loved like a human being! Lord, Lord, have mercy upon me!"

These piteous exclamations met the ear of Arthur as he entered the room,
and roused all the latent wrath of his nature. He forgot every thing but
the dark, masked figure which, gathering up its cloak, sprang towards
the door, with the intention of escaping, but an iron grasp held it
back. Seldom, indeed, were the strong but subdued passions of Arthur
Hazleton suffered to master him, but now they had the ascendency. He
never thought of calling on Mr. Mason to assist him quietly in securing
the robber, as he might have done, but yielding to an irresistible
impulse of vengeance, he grappled fiercely with the mask, who writhed
and struggled in his unclinching hold. Something fell rattling on the
floor, and continued to rattle as the strife went on. Mr. Mason, knowing
that by virtue of his authority he could arrest the offender at once,
looked on with that strange pleasure which men feel in witnessing scenes
of conflict. He was astonished at the transformation of the young
doctor. He had always seen him so calm and gentle in the chamber of
sickness, so peaceful in his intercourse with his fellow-men, that he
did not know the lamb could be thus changed into the lion.

Arthur had now effected his object, in unmasking and uncloaking his
antagonist, and he found himself face to face with--Bryant Clinton. The
young men stood gazing at each other for a few moments in perfect
silence. They were both of an ashy paleness, and their eyes glittered
under the shadow of their darkened brows. But Clinton could not long
sustain that steadfast, victor glance. His own wavered and fell, and the
blood swept over his