action of the handle, with what tenacity she clung to it; and,
stung to frenzy by the sight, he hurled himself against the sturdy
plank, but all in vain. At length the handle was still. There was a
heavy fall upon the floor--a stifled scream--and a sound as of a body
being dragged along. The thought was madness.

"To the panel! to the panel!" cried a voice--it was that of Turpin--from
within.

"The panel!--ha!" echoed Ranulph, with a sudden gleam of hope. "I may
yet save her." And he darted along the corridor with the swiftness of
thought.

Luke, meanwhile, had for some minutes fruitlessly exhausted all his
force to drag Eleanor from the door. Despair gave her strength; she
clutched at the door; but she felt her strength failing her--her grasp
was relaxing. And then the maddening thought that she would be shortly
his--that he would slay her--while the idea that Ranulph was so near,
and yet unable to protect her, added gall even to her bitterness. With
savage delight Luke exulted in the lovers' tortures. He heard Ranulph's
ineffectual attempts; he heard his groans; he heard their mutual cries.
Inflamed by jealousy, he triumphed in his power of vengeance, and even
prolonged the torture which accident had given him the means of
inflicting. He stood like the inquisitor who marks his victim's anguish
on the rack, and calculates his powers of further endurance. But he
could no longer dally, even with this horrible gratification. His
companion grew impatient. Eleanor's fair long tresses had escaped from
their confinement in the struggle, and fell down her neck in disorder.
Twining his fingers amidst its folds, Luke dragged her backwards from
her hold, and, incapable of further resistance, her strength completely
exhausted, the wretched girl fell to the ground.

Luke now raised her almost inanimate form in his arms, and had nigh
reached the aperture, when a crash was heard in the panel opposite to
that by which he was about to escape, and communicating with a further
apartment. It was thrown open, and Ranulph Rookwood presented himself at
the narrow partition. An exclamation of joy, that he was yet in time,
escaped his lips; and he was about to clear the partition at a bound,
and to precipitate himself upon Luke, when, as suddenly as his own
action, was the person of the unfortunate Mr. Coates wedged into the
aperture.

"Traitor!" cried Ranulph, regarding Coates with concentrated fury, "dare
you to oppose me?--hence! or,