obstacles, directly towards the Mansion of the Moss.

My suspense was now, in a few moments, to be ended. We stepped on shore without speaking a word, and proceeded to the house like two deadly foes to the lists. Late as it was, we found the hall door open; the floods, indeed, had warped it so as to prevent the possibility of its closing. The drawing-room, likewise, stood stubbornly ajar, and suffered us to force our way through without so much as a creak.

As we entered, I perceived the apartment to be partially lighted by a smouldering wood-fire. We stopped by mutual impulse. At the opposite sides sat two figures engaged in a conversation so exciting that our entrance was unobserved.

"And you refuse to let me depart?" said the electric voice of Lucy, with its most indignant energy.

"If you are in such a hurry to depart, I should be glad to know why you came?" replied the brutal tones of Carrol. "You cannot say that I brought you?"

"No-you did not use violence, it is true.

-You employed means still more base—you instructed your confederate in London to show me a pretended confidential letter, describing my mother's secret removal to this horrid place, in order to our separation. You knew that I could not hesitate in following, and thus made the feelings of nature, which a savage would have respected, the cause perhaps of my lasting misery. Have you not deprived me of all possibility of escape?"

"You can depart with Walters, whenever he chooses to fetch you.”

"You know he dare not see me. You know he is fully aware of my utter contempt for him; or, if he is not, you have misled him by false statements."

I had heard enough, and was in the act of springing forward to clasp her once more to my heart, but Walters eagerly held me back, as if he would learn more.

"I grant you," returned Carrol, with a wrathful grin, "that it requires some courage to face such a born devil, but Walters will be here nevertheless, and I should advise you to receive him in the light I propose; for this is

a lonely place, and, you understand, I am the master." He paused and clenched his teeth, and again grinned horribly.

"So, Mr. Carrol, you threaten to murder me? Oh, for some new invented words to express my scorn! Yet, I thank you for this liberal and complete display of your virtues, for my poor unhappy mother must now dismiss her last scruple, and leave you to your career of wickedness alone."

As

"Think you so ? You have come here to seek her, and why may she not come to seek you? I should be sorry for such a necessity, for you know the air of this place does not agree with her. Come, come, let us talk reason-Walters is a man of the world-and an old friend; and has taken a liking to you, for which nothing short of the devil can account. for this new acquaintance whom you talk of marrying, who is he, and what is he, but a dullwitted piece of common-place, who will make his way in life about as glibly as he would flounder through this cursed mud-pond? You take him because he promises to take you to America; why, so will Walters-that I promise

VOL. I.

you faithfully. He must go to America, whether he likes it or not; for, just to give you an idea of his strange infatuation for you, he has thought it worth his while to find me the equivalent to the means which your obstinate mother refused me, and must leave the country as soon as he can."

"A felon! your consideration for my hap piness is really beyond praise. Mr. Walters commits felony to offer you a bribe to sacrifice me, and I am to enjoy his society in America, whilst you bring my mother to the Mansion of the Moss to enjoy your respectable acquisition! It was unnecessary to tell me this. It proves your head to be as bad as your heart -and the only alternative I have is to be murdered!"

Carrol's rage could be curbed no longer, and burst forth in appalling execrations. He jumped from his seat with a stamp that might have beaten in the rotten flooring, and my companion advanced a step with me in expectation of some act of desperate violence. He, however, only seized the poker, and plunged it into the slumbering fire, as though it had been the

The flame

heart of the undaunted Lucy. sprang up bright and high; and, when he turned to glare destruction upon his helpless victim, he encountered the poised figures and concentrated fury of his unexpected visiters. Lucy shrieked and sprang to meet me, whilst Walters, thrilling to the quick with disappointment and the astounding conviction of the extent to which he had been duped, flung himself like a tiger upon his false confederate, and, had his strength been equal to his rage, would have strangled him on the spot. Carrol, with the supernatural exertions of terror, contrived to extricate himself, and rushed out of the door, pursued closely by his determined assailant. I let them have the dispute to themselves, and cared not how soon they destroyed each other. Shouts and curses apprized us that they were again in contact, and Lucy clung to me in a convulsion of horror.

"Is it thus that you repay my interest?" articulated the struggling voice of Carrol.

"Is it thus I find her love, which you called so devoted to me?" replied the infuriated Walters.