"

It was beyond human power to look into those beautiful violet eyes,
drowned in the most agonized tears, and the white, terrified, anxious
face, without yielding to her prayer.

"I do not know what good reason you may have for binding us to secrecy,"
he said, slowly and reluctantly, "but we cannot choose but to give you
the promise--nay, the pledge--you plead for. I can answer for my Mary as
well as myself--the story of to-night's happenings shall never pass our
lips until you give us leave to speak."

"Thank you! Oh, I thank you a thousand times!" sobbed the girl. "You
have lifted a terrible load from my heart. If the time ever comes when I
can repay you, rest assured it shall surely be done."

She tried to rise from her couch, but the good wife held her back upon
her pillow with a detaining hand, exclaiming:

"What are you about to do, my dear child?"

"Go away from here," sobbed the girl, again attempting to arise from the
couch, but falling back upon the pillow from sheer weakness.

She did not leave that couch for many a day. What she had undergone had
been too much for her shattered nerves.

Brain fever threatened the hapless girl, but was warded off by the
faithful nursing of old Adam's faithful wife.

And during those weeks the good woman could learn nothing of the history
of the beautiful young stranger, who persistently refused to divulge one
word concerning herself. She would turn her face to the wall and weep so
violently when any allusion was made to her past that the grave digger's
wife gave up questioning her.

One morning the bed was empty. It had not been slept in. The girl had
fled in the night.

Who she was, or where she had gone, was to them the darkest, deepest
mystery. Would it ever be revealed? They could not discuss it with the
old minister or any of the neighbors, for their lips were sealed in
eternal silence concerning the matter.

"I feel sure the end of this matter is not yet," said old Adam,
prophetically. "When the girl comes face to face with the dastardly
villain she wedded that night, it will end in a tragedy."

"God forbid!" murmured his wife with a shudder; but down in her own
heart she felt that her husband had spoken the truth; the tragic end of
this affair had not yet come.

CHAPTER XI.

"YOU ARE DISINHERITED--EVERYTHING IN THIS HOUSE IS MINE."

Faynie had indeed departed from that humble home as she had entered it,
in the dark, dim silence of the bitte