ody.

She just reached the bottom of the steps when, catching her foot
on the uneven pavement of the yard, she over-balanced herself, and
tumbled heavily upon the bier, almost knocking the body off as she
fell.

"Guilty!" eagerly shouted Sir George; "she is guilty; seize her."

But before he had finished the sentence, Mary had turned and fled,
and far from attempting to hinder her in her headlong flight, the
awe-struck people, one and all, shrunk eagerly back to escape being
brought into contact with one who had just given such unmistakable
proofs of witchcraft, and who had been condemned a murderess by the
almost infallible ordeal of the bier.

CHAPTER V.

A VISIT TO NOTTINGHAM.

One sole desire, one passion now remains,
To keep life's fever still within his veins.
Vengeance, dire vengeance, on the wretch who cast
On him and all he had the ruinous blast.

MOORE.

It was upon the third day after the occurrences narrated in the last
chapter had taken place that a lonely traveller might have been seen
urging his way across the fields just outside the town of Nottingham.
The gates closed at dusk: it was now past sunset, and he hastened
forward to gain admittance.

It was the man known at Haddon by the name of Nathan Grene, the
locksmith, whose actions had ever been at variance with his character,
and whose nature had always seemed to have been unequally yoked with
the common occupation of a smith.

Nathan, in fact, was no true smith. He was a brother-in-law of
Sir Ronald Bury, and having taken up the practice of astrology and
alchemy, this fact had been seized upon by his foes, and he had
been obliged to fly in disguise to save himself from one of those
persecutions which were so readily and frequently levelled against the
followers of the "black arts."

In the character of a locksmith he had lived for some months in an
uneasy state of security at Haddon. The lack of comfort which he was
compelled to experience in his new position being compensated for in
some small degree by the kind attentions he had received at the hands
of the widow Durden, which began directly upon his arrival, and which
soon rapidly ripened into a sincere regard for each other, and from
that eventually progressed into love.

Being well born, Nathan Grene--or rather Edmund Wynne, for such was
his proper name--had never taken kindly to the conditions imposed upon
him by the disguise he had chosen to assume. He had ne