d your comrades
must effect an entry," said Antonio.

The valet and the robber-chief now moved away from the spot where they
had stood to hold the above conversation; and the moment they had turned
the adjacent angle of the mansion, Nisida hastened to regain her
apartment by the private staircase--resolving, however, to see Wagner as
early as possible in the morning.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE LAST MEETING OF AGNES AND THE STRANGER LADY.

While all nature was wrapped in the listening stillness of admiration at
the rising sun, Fernand Wagner dragged himself painfully toward his
home.

His garments were besmeared with mud and dirt; they were torn, too, in
many places; and here and there were stains of blood, still wet, upon
them.

In fact, had he been dragged by a wild horse through a thicket of
brambles, he could scarcely have appeared in a more wretched plight.

His countenance was ghastly pale; terror still flashed from his eyes,
and despair sat on his lofty brow.

Stealing through the most concealed part of his garden, he was
approaching his own mansion with the air of a man who returns home in
the morning after having perpetrated some dreadful deed of turpitude
under cover of the night.

But the watchful eyes of a woman have marked his coming from the lattice
of her window; and in a few minutes Agnes, light as a fawn, came
bounding toward him, exclaiming, "Oh! what a night of uneasiness have I
passed, Fernand! But at length thou art restored to me--thou whom I have
ever loved so fondly; although," she added, mournfully, "I abandoned
thee for so long a time!"

And she embraced him tenderly.

"Agnes!" cried Fernand, repulsing her with an impatience which she had
never experienced at his hands before: "wherefore thus act the spy upon
me? Believe me, that although we pass ourselves off as brother and
sister, yet I do not renounce that authority which the real nature of
those ties that bind us together----"

"Fernand! Fernand! this to me!" exclaimed Agnes, bursting into tears.
"Oh! how have I deserved such reproaches?"

"My dearest girl, pardon me, forgive me!" cried Wagner, in a tone of
bitter anguish. "My God! I ought not to upbraid thee for that
watchfulness during my absence, and that joy at my return, which prove
that you love me! Again I say, pardon me, dearest Agnes."

"You need not ask me, Fernand," was the reply. "Only speak kindly to
me----"

"I do, I will, Agnes," interrupted Wagner. "But l