? Release me."

"Be patient," replied Alan. "You will hear all anon. In the meantime you
must be content to remain my prisoner. Quit not your hold," added he,
addressing the gipsies, who kept charge of Luke.

"Their lives shall answer for their obedience," said Barbara.

Upon a further signal from Alan, Eleanor was torn from her mother's
arms, and a bandage passed so suddenly over Mrs. Mowbray's face, that,
before she could raise a cry of alarm, all possibility of utterance was
effectually prevented. The priest alone was left at liberty.

Barbara snatched the hand of Eleanor. She dragged her to Sybil.

"You are Lady Rookwood," whispered she; "but she has your domains. I
give her to you."

"She is the _only bar_ between thy husband and his rights," whispered
Alan Rookwood, in a tone of horrible irony; "_it is not too late to
repair your wrong_."

"Away, tempter!" cried Sybil, horror-stricken. "I know you well. Yet,"
continued she, in an altered tone, "I will risk all for him. I have done
him wrong. One mode of atonement remains; and, horrible though it be, I
will embrace it. Let me not pause. Give her to me." And she seized upon
the unresisting hand of Eleanor.

"Do you need my aid?" asked Barbara.

"No," replied Sybil; "let none approach us. A clapping of hands will let
you know when all is over." And she dragged her passive victim deeper
into the vault.

"Sybil, Sybil!" cried Luke, struggling with frantic violence to liberate
himself; "hurt her not. I was rash. I was mad. I am calmer now. She
hears me not--she will not turn. God of heaven! she will murder her. It
will be done while I speak. I am the cause of all. Release me, villains!
Would that I had died ere I had seen this day."

At a signal from the sexton, Luke also was blindfolded. He ceased to
struggle. But his laboring breast told of the strife within.

"Miscreants!" exclaimed the priest, who had hitherto witnessed the
proceedings in horror. "Why do not these rocks fall in, and crush you
and your iniquities? Save her! oh, save her! Have you no pity for the
innocent?"

"Such pity have we," replied Alan Rookwood, "as you showed my daughter.
She was as innocent as Eleanor Mowbray, and yet you did not pity _her_."

"Heaven is my witness," exclaimed the priest, "that I never injured
her."

"Take not Heaven's name in vain," cried Alan. "Who stood by while it was
doing? Whose firmer hand lent aid to the murderer's trembling efforts?
Whose pressure s