tiptoe, and bestowed a kiss, light as a
zephyr, on his gray head. And, in truth, the bending attitude of this
supple figure, clad in snowy muslin, the virginal face and light hazel
eyes beaming love and reverence, and the airy kiss, had something
angelic.

She took her candle, and glided up to her bedroom. And, the moment she
got there, and could gratify her somnolence without offense, need we say
she became wide-awake? She sat down and wrote long letters to three other
young ladies, gushing affection, asking questions of the kind nobody
replies to, painting, with a young lady's colors, the male being to whom
she was shortly to be married, wishing her dear friends a like demigod,
if perchance earth contained two; and so to the last new bonnet and
preacher.

She sat over her paper till one o'clock, and Seaton watched and adored
her shadow.

When she had done writing, she opened her window and looked out upon the
night. She lifted those wonderful hazel eyes toward the stars, and her
watcher might well be pardoned if he saw in her a celestial being looking
up from an earthly resting place toward her native sky.

At two o'clock she was in bed, but not asleep. She lay calmly gazing at
the Southern Cross and other lovely stars shining with vivid but chaste
fire in the purple vault of heaven.

While thus employed she heard a slight sound outside that made her turn
her eyes toward a young tree near her window. Its top branches were
waving a good deal, though there was not a breath stirring. This struck
her as curious, very curious.

While she wondered, suddenly an arm and a hand came in sight, and after
them the whole figure of a man, going up the tree.

Helen sat up now, glaring with terror, and was so paralyzed she did not
utter a sound. About a foot below her window was a lead flat that roofed
the bay-window below. It covered an area of several feet, and the man
sprang on to it with perfect ease from the tree. Helen shrieked with
terror. At that very instant there was a flash, a pistol-shot, and the
man's arms went whirling, and he staggered and fell over the edge of the
flat, and struck the grass below with a heavy thud. Shots and blows
followed, and all the sounds of a bloody struggle rung in Helen's ears as
she flung herself screaming from the bed and darted to the door. She ran
and clung quivering to her sleepy maid, Wilson. The house was alarmed,
lights flashed, footsteps pattered, there was universal commotion.