grasp confined Ranulph.

"Must I see her borne away before my eyes?" cried Ranulph. "Release
me--set me free!"

"Quite impossible at present," returned Dick. "Mount and away, Sir
Luke," continued he; "never mind me. Leave me to shift for myself."

"Eleanor!" cried Ranulph, as she passed close by his side.

"Ranulph!" shrieked Eleanor, with a loud scream, recalled to
consciousness by his voice, "farewell for ever."

"Ay, for ever," responded Luke, triumphantly. "You meet no more on
earth."

He was about to pass through the panel, when Eleanor exerted all her
remaining strength in a last futile attempt at liberation. In the
struggle, a packet fell from Luke's bosom.

Handassah stooped to pick it up.

"From Sybil!" exclaimed she, glancing at the superscription.

"Remember my promise to old Barbara," roared Dick, who had some
curiosity, as the reader knows, to learn what the package contained.
"The time is arrived. Eleanor is in your power--in your presence."

"Give me the packet," said Luke, resigning Eleanor for the instant to
Handassah's custody--"take the steel, and grasp her firmly."

Handassah, who, though slight of figure, was of singular personal
strength, twined her arms about Miss Mowbray in such a manner as to
preclude all possibility of motion.

Luke tore open the package. It was a box carefully enclosed in several
folds of linen, and lastly within a sheet of paper, on which were
inscribed these words:

THE DOWER OF SYBIL

Hastily, and with much curiosity, Luke raised the lid of the box. It
contained one long silken tress of blackest hair enviously braided. It
was Sybil's. His first impulse was to cast it from him; his next,
reproachfully to raise it to his lips. He started as if a snake had
stung him.

At this moment a loud clamor was heard in the gallery. In the next, the
door was assailed by violent strokes, evidently proceeding from some
weighty instrument, impelled by the united strength of several
assailants.

The voice of Turpin rose above the deafening din. "A bullet for the
first who enters," shouted he. "Quick, Sir Luke, and the prize is
safe--away, and----"

But as he seconded his exhortation with a glance at Luke, he broke off
the half-uttered sentence, and started with horror and amazement. Ere
the cause of his alarm could be expressed, the door was burst open, and
a crowd of domestics, headed by Major Mowbray and Titus Tyrconnel,
rushed into the room.

"Nay, then, the g