own
name on the signboard. Nay, Dame, never give way like that. Lean on
me,--so. He is a villain,--a false, jealous, double-faced villain."

Mrs. Gaunt's head fell back on Ryder's shoulder, and she said no word;
but only moaned and moaned, and her white teeth clicked convulsively
together.

Ryder wept over her sad state: the tears were half impulse, half
crocodile.

She applied hartshorn to the sufferer's nostrils, and tried to rouse her
mind by exciting her anger. But all was in vain. There hung the betrayed
wife, pale, crushed, and quivering under the cruel blow.

Ryder asked her if she should go down and excuse her to her guests.

She nodded a feeble assent.

Ryder then laid her down on the bed with her head low, and was just
about to leave her on that errand, when hurried steps were heard outside
the door; and one of the female servants knocked; and, not waiting to be
invited, put her head in, and cried, "O, Dame, the Master is come home.
He is in the kitchen."

CHAPTER XXXIV.

Mrs. Ryder made an agitated motion with her hand, and gave the girl such
a look withal, that she retired precipitately.

But Mrs. Gaunt had caught the words, and they literally transformed her.
She sprang off the bed, and stood erect, and looked a Saxon Pythoness:
golden hair streaming down her back, and gray eyes gleaming with fury.

She caught up a little ivory-handled knife, and held it above her head.

"I'll drive this into his heart before them all," she cried, "and tell
them the reason _afterwards_."

Ryder looked at her for a moment in utter terror. She saw a woman with
grander passions than herself; a woman that looked quite capable of
executing her sanguinary threat. Ryder made no more ado, but slipped out
directly to prevent a meeting that might be attended with terrible
consequences.

She found her master in the kitchen, splashed with mud, drinking a horn
of ale after his ride, and looking rather troubled and anxious; and, by
the keen eye of her sex, she saw that the female servants were also in
considerable anxiety. The fact is, they had just extemporized a lie.

Tom Leicester, being near the kitchen window, had seen Griffith ride
into the court-yard.

At sight of that well-known figure, he drew back, and his heart quaked
at his own imprudence, in confiding Griffith's secret to Caroline Ryder.

"Lasses," said he, hastily, "do me a kindness for old acquaintance.
Here's the Squire. For Heaven's sake, don't let