d, if possible, procure an interview. He
expected to obtain some clue to their procedings by a visit to the
tower.

It was not far from the close of a bright summer's day when he gained
the rude bridge below the waterfall. He shuddered as he looked on the
narrow trunk and the ever-tossing gulf beneath. The blackness of
darkness was upon his spirit, and he ran as if some demon had pursued
him, climbing with almost breathless haste the steep and winding
staircase that gave access from the bridge to the ruined fortress above.

From the platform a narrow ledge of rock led to the ditch, now dry, and
nearly filled with fragments from the ruins. He passed the tottering
arch of the portcullis;--long weeds choked up the entrance, waving
drearily as the light breeze went over them. Hildebrand heard not the
moan of the coming blast. Evening approached, and the thousand shadows
haunted him,--grim spectres that crossed his path, crowding upon him
with anger and menace. From a ruined doorway he ascended a narrow stair,
and had penetrated far into the interior of that part of the castle
which, in some measure, remained entire, when, for the first time, he
seemed startled into a consciousness of his situation. It was an
appalling scene of solitude and decay. The realities, to which he almost
instantaneously awoke, might have awed a less guilty spirit than that
which inhabited the bosom of Hildebrand Wentworth. A long gallery,
supported by huge pillars, terminated in the distance by a long and
narrow oriel. On each side, broken but richly-variegated windows threw
down a many-tinted light, which, oppressed by the dark and caverned
arches, gave a strange and mysterious character to the grotesque
reflections hovering on the floor. Narrow streams of light flitted
across the dense vapours, visible only in their gleam. Involuntarily did
Hildebrand pass on: impelled as if by some unseen but resistless power,
he durst not retrace his footsteps. His tread was slow and fearful, as
he traversed the long and dreary vista. Every sense was now in full
exercise;--his faculties becoming more acute by the extremity of terror
he endured. His ear caught the slightest sound--his eye, the least
motion that glimmered across his path. Sometimes a terrific shape seemed
to glide past: he brushed the cold and clammy damps from his brow, and
it vanished.

Suddenly a door opened at the extremity of the gallery, and a faint
light streamed from the crevice. Voice