lingly--"it been't safe."

"At least it is as safe as murder!" answered Darvil, turning round, with
a ghastly grin. "Make haste."

When Alice recovered her senses, the dawn was breaking slowly along
desolate and sullen hills. She was lying upon rough straw--the cart was
jolting over the ruts of a precipitous, lonely road,--and by her side
scowled the face of that dreadful father.

CHAPTER XI.

"Yet he beholds her with the eyes of mind--
He sees the form which he no more shall meet;
She like a passionate thought is come and gone,
While at his feet the bright rill bubbles on."
ELLIOTT _of Sheffield_.

IT was a little more than three weeks after that fearful night, when the
chaise of Maltravers stopped at the cottage door--the windows were shut
up; no one answered the repeated summons of the post-boy. Maltravers
himself, alarmed and amazed, descended from the vehicle: he was in
deep mourning. He went impatiently to the back entrance; that also was
locked; round to the French windows of the drawing-room, always hitherto
half-opened, even in the frosty days of winter,--they were now closed
like the rest. He shouted in terror, "Alice, Alice!"--no sweet voice
answered in breathless joy, no fairy step bounded forward in welcome.
At this moment, however, appeared the form of the gardener coming across
the lawn. The tale was soon told; the house had been robbed--the old
woman at morning found gagged and fastened to her bed-post--Alice flown.
A magistrate had been applied to,--suspicion fell upon the fugitive.
None knew anything of her origin or name, not even the old woman.
Maltravers had naturally and sedulously ordained Alice to preserve that
secret, and she was too much in fear of being detected and claimed by
her father not to obey the injunction with scrupulous caution. But it
was known, at least, that she had entered the house a poor peasant girl;
and what more common than for ladies of a certain description to run
away from their lover, and take some of his property by mistake? And
a poor girl like Alice, what else could be expected? The magistrate
smiled, and the constables laughed. After all, it was a good joke at
the young gentleman's expense! Perhaps, as they had no orders from
Maltravers, and they did not know where to find him, and thought he
would be little inclined to prosecute, the search was not very rigorous.
But two houses had been robbed the night before. Their owners were more
on the aler