s--children's voices--were heard
in the chamber. He rushed onward. Rage, frantic and uncontrolled,
possessed him, as he beheld the babes, the intended victims of his
avarice, in all the bloom of health and innocence, unconscious of
danger, bounding through the apartment, together with their nurse and
protector, Alice! Goaded by his insatiate tormentor, he drew a poniard
from his vest, and rushed on the unoffending objects of his hate. Alice
shrieked; she attempted to throw herself between them and their foe, but
was too far off to accomplish her purpose. His arm was too sure, and his
stroke too sudden. But ere the steel could pierce his victims it was
arrested. He looked round, and a female figure, loosely enveloped in a
dark cloak, had rescued them from death. It was the same form that had
before interposed between them and the fangs of their remorseless enemy.
Loosened by the sudden spring, her garment flew aside. Hildebrand gazed
silently, but with a look of horror, too wild and intense to be
portrayed. He seemed to recognise the intruder--his lips moved rapidly
while he spoke.

"Thee!--whom the waves had swallowed! Have the waters given up their
dead?"--he faintly exclaimed, almost gasping for utterance.

"Monster! canst thou look upon this form," she cried, "and not wither at
the sight? But I have done," she meekly continued: "Heaven hath yet a
blessing for the innocent;--but thy cup of iniquity is full. Thy doom is
at hand. I have trusted Thee, O my Father; and I trust Thee still!"

It was the much injured and persecuted wife of Sir Henry Fairfax who now
stood before the abashed miscreant.

"Away!" she cried; "to Heaven I leave my vengeance and thy crime.
Hence--to thy home! Thine, did I say? Soon, monster, shall thou be
chased from thy lair, and the wronged victim regain his right."

Hildebrand, awed and confounded, retraced his path, brooding over some
more cunning stratagem to ensure his prey. He had passed the bridge,
and, on attempting to remount his steed, his attention was directed to a
cloud of dust, and a pale flash of arms in the evening light. Two
horsemen drew nigh--their steeds studded with gouts of foam, and in an
instant one of them alighted before the traitor. It was Sir Henry
Fairfax! "Have I caught thee?" cried the knight.--"What mischief art
thou here a-perpetrating?--Seize that villain!"

In a moment, Hildebrand was denied all chance of escape.

"Thy machinations are defeated--thy villan