! But why may I not go with you?"

"For reasons that I will explain soon. Till I do, you must trust me."

"I trust you utterly."

"Then please leave here for Philadelphia on Tuesday evening, so as to
precede me by twelve hours. And on Friday morning, by ten o'clock, be at
the place I have designated, and wait until I join you."

"And we will be married the same day?"

"We will be married at noon on the same day. Now do you understand?"

"My mind is in a delirium of joy, but I understand."

"Now, dearest, you must take me out to the carriage," she said, rising
and drawing her shawl around her.

He gave her his arm and led her out to the carriage, which the
frightened negro coachman had driven quite to the opposite side of the
road from the terrible haunted house.

"Now go on to the Misses Cranes'," she said, after she had taken leave
of her victim and settled herself in her seat.

It was nearly twelve o'clock when she entered her boarding-house; but
she told her waiting landladies that she had spent the day and half the
night with the sick child, and they were satisfied.

CHAPTER XXXI.

A FATAL JOURNEY.

Thither, full fraught with mischievous revenge,
Accursed and in a cursed hour, she hies.
--MILTON.

On that Wednesday morning the fine steamer "Pocahontas" lay at her wharf
receiving freight and passengers for Washington and Alexandria.

Her decks were crowded with men, women and children, all either going on
the voyage or "seeing off" departing friends and acquaintances.

Among the passengers on the forward deck stood a slight, elegant,
graceful woman, clothed in widow's weeds and deeply veiled.

This was, of course, Mary Grey, bound upon her baleful errand.

She had spent the intervening Tuesday with her infatuated instrument,
Craven Kyte. But when he pleaded to attend her to the boat and see her
off she forbid his doing so on pain of an eternal separation from her.

But she renewed their agreement that he should precede her by twelve
hours, and meet her at a designated place in Philadelphia on Friday
morning.

And she stayed with him until quite late in the evening, and finally
left him comforted with the hope of a speedy meeting and a certain
marriage.

For the edification of her landladies, the precise Misses Crane, she
trumped up a story that at once explained the necessity of her sudden
journey North, and, as usual, redounded to he