s window, even if the bars could be forced, was rendered secure by
the vigilance of a soldier placed beneath to protect it. His own
strength and address were therefore unavailing; the conviction vexed and
mortified him, and he paced his apartment with rapid steps, till his
harassed feelings were wrought up to the highest pitch of irritability.

Daylight disappeared, and the evening advanced in gloom and darkness;
not a star shone in the heavens, and the moon vainly struggled with the
clouds which overshadowed her. A hollow blast, at intervals, swept
across the grated window, then murmured into total silence; the waves
rolled sullenly below, and occasionally the measured dash of oars from
some passing boat was mingled with their melancholy cadence. La Tour's
meditations were broken by the sentinel entering with a light; and as he
placed it on a wooden stand, he lingered a moment, and regarded the
prisoner with peculiar attention. He, however, took no notice of it,
except to avert his face more entirely from, what he considered, a gaze
of impertinent curiosity. The soldier, as he re-opened the door, again
turned, and seemed on the point of speaking; but La Tour could endure
no intrusion, and a glance of angry reproof from his eye, induced a
precipitate retreat. He almost instantly repented this vehemence; for
that parting look was familiar to him, and possibly he might have
received some desirable information.

But it was too late to recall what he had done; and La Tour again sunk
into a train of reflections, though of a more tranquil nature than those
which before agitated him. Recent occurrences had revived the
recollections of earlier years; and he looked back, with softened
feelings, on those peaceful scenes, which he had left in youth to buffet
with the storms of life, and the still fiercer storms of passion. His
thoughts were, at length, exclusively occupied with the appearance of
the female whom he so unexpectedly encountered on the first evening of
his imprisonment, and whose features he had instantly identified with an
image once most dear to him; but which had, long since, been absorbed in
the pursuits of interest, and the struggles of ambition. The time had
indeed gone by, when associations, blended with that image, could deeply
agitate him; and, connected as they were, with his aversion to D'Aulney,
they tended to excite emotions of anger rather than of tenderness.

But, whatever was the nature of his feeling