estimates, a swinging and giddy horror; the single star that
peered through the cloud took to airy dancing, a phantom of the evening
heavens; again he might have fallen, but the material, more deadly,
world he was accustomed to manifested itself for his relief and his
salvation. Through the night rang a pistol shot, and the ball struck
against the wall but an inch or two from his head.

"Merci beaucoup!" he said aloud. "There is nothing like a pill," and
his grasp upon the sides of the illuminated window was quite strong and
confident as he drew himself towards it. He threw himself in upon
the floor just in time to escape death from half a dozen bullets that
rattled behind him.

Safe within, he looked around in wonder. What he had come upon was not
what he had expected,--was, indeed, so incongruous with the cell next
door and the general poverty of the castle as a whole that it seemed
unreal; for here was a trim and tasteful boudoir lit by a silver
lamp, warmed by a charcoal fire, and giving some suggestion of dainty
womanhood by a palpable though delicate odour of rose-leaves conserved
in pot-pourri. Tapestry covered more than three-fourths of the wall,
swinging gently in the draught from the open window, a harpischord stood
in a corner, a couch that had apparently been occupied stood between the
fireplace and the door, and a score of evidences indicated gentility and
taste.

"Annapla becomes more interesting," he reflected, but he spent no time
in her boudoir; he made to try the door. It was locked; nor did he
wonder at it, though in a cooler moment he might have done so. Hurriedly
he glanced about the room for something to aid him to open the door, but
there was nothing to suit his purpose. In his search his eye fell upon
a miniature upon the mantelshelf--the work, as he could tell by its
technique and its frame, of a French artist. It was the presentment of
a gentleman in the Highland dress, adorned, as was the manner of some
years back before the costume itself had become discredited, with
fripperies of the mode elsewhere--a long scalloped waistcoat, a deep
ruffled collar, the shoes buckled, and the hair _en queue_,--the
portrait of a man of dark complexion, distinguished and someways
pleasant.

"The essential lover of the story," said Count Victor, putting it down.
"Now I know my Annapla is young and lovely. We shall see--we shall see!"

He turned to the door to try its fastenings with his sword, found the