ind in the perils of
Schonwaldt, while she made her own escape."

"Did the Lady Hameline not mention to you, then," said Quentin, "her
intended flight?"

"No," replied the Countess, "but she alluded to some communication which
Marthon was to make to me. To say truth, my poor kinswoman's head was
so turned by the mysterious jargon of the miserable Hayraddin, whom that
day she had admitted to a long and secret conference, and she threw out
so many strange hints that--that--in short, I cared not to press on her,
when in that humour, for any explanation. Yet it was cruel to leave me
behind her."

"I will excuse the Lady Hameline from intending such unkindness," said
Quentin, "for such was the agitation of the moment, and the darkness
of the hour, that I believe the Lady Hameline as certainly conceived
herself accompanied by her niece, as I at the same time, deceived by
Marthon's dress and demeanour, supposed I was in the company of both
the Ladies of Croye: and of her especially," he added, with a low but
determined voice, "without whom the wealth of worlds would not have
tempted me to leave."

Isabelle stooped her head forward, and seemed scarce to hear the
emphasis with which Quentin had spoken. But she turned her face to him
again when he began to speak of the policy of Louis, and, it was not
difficult for them, by mutual communication, to ascertain that the
Bohemian brothers, with their accomplice Marthon, had been the agents of
that crafty monarch, although Zamet, the elder of them, with a perfidy
peculiar to his race, had attempted to play a double game, and had
been punished accordingly. In the same humour of mutual confidence, and
forgetting the singularity of their own situation, as well as the perils
of the road, the travellers pursued their journey for several hours,
only stopping to refresh their horses at a retired dorff, or hamlet, to
which they were conducted by Hans Glover, who, in all other respects,
as well as in leaving them much to their own freedom in conversation,
conducted himself like a person of reflection and discretion.

Meantime, the artificial distinction which divided the two lovers
(for such we may now term them) seemed dissolved, or removed, by the
circumstances in which they were placed, for if the Countess boasted the
higher rank, and was by birth entitled to a fortune incalculably larger
than that of the youth, whose revenue lay in his sword, it was to be
considered that, for the pre