part and said: 'Madame, we are
an unhappy couple. We have been married just four hours.'"

Here I paused for breath, and to take a good look at madame.

She was fixed as a stone, but her eyes were burning. Evidently she
expected the relation of a story which she knew. I would disappoint her.
I would cause in her first a shock of relief, and then I would reawaken
her fears and probe her very soul. Slowly, and as if it were a matter of
course, I proceeded to say:

"It was a run-away match, and as the young husband remarked, 'a great
disappointment to my wife's father, who is an English general and a
great man. My wife loves me, and will never allow herself to be torn
from me; but she is not of age, and her father is but a few minutes'
ride behind us. Will you let us come in? We dare not risk the encounter
on the road; he would shoot me down like a dog, and that would kill my
young wife. If we see him here, he may take pity on our love, and--'

"He needed to say no more. My own compassion had been excited, as much
by her countenance as by his words, and I threw open the doors of this
very room.

"'Go in,' said I, 'I have a woman's heart, and cannot bear to see young
people in distress. When the general comes--'

"'We shall hear him,' cried the girl; 'he has half a dozen horsemen with
him. We saw them when we were on the brow of the hill.'

"'Take comfort, then,' I cried, as I closed the door, and went to see
after the solitary horse which had brought them to this place.

"But before I could provide the meal with which I meant to strengthen
them for the scene that must presently ensue, I heard the anticipated
clattering of hoofs, and simultaneously with it, the unclosing of this
door and the cry of the young wife to her husband:

"'I cannot bear it. At his first words I should fall in a faint; and how
could I resist him then? No; let me fly; let me hide myself; and when he
comes in, swear that you are here alone; that you brought no bride; that
she left you at the altar--anything to baffle his rage and give us
time.' And the young thing sprang out before me, and lifting her hands,
prayed with great wide-open eyes that I would assist the lie, and swear
to her father, when he came in, that her husband had ridden up alone.

"I was not as old then as I am now, I say, and I was very tender toward
youthful lovers. Though I thought the scheme a wild one and totally
impracticable, she so governed me by her looks and tones