out the slightest appearance of haste, and stood still a
little longer, more like a marble statue endowed with the power of
motion than a breathing, living creature.

"Are you going?" called Elsie.

"Yes; I shall not be long--not long."

But Elsie rushed after her and caught her in her arms.

"Every moment is worth a whole life," cried Elizabeth. "Let me go!"

She forced the girl to release her hold, and with one feeble wail Elsie
fell senseless to the floor.

"Better so," muttered Elizabeth, "better so!"

The excitement she was laboring under gave this woman new strength. She
raised the insensible girl, carried her through the vacant chamber, and
laid her on the bed in her own room. She drew the bedclothes over her
inanimate form and turned away.

"Now for the end," she murmured, "the bitter, bitter end."

She went back to her own room, closing the doors after her, then,
without further delay, passed down the private staircase which led to
the little entry off the library.

Once on the stairs she paused to listen, but there was no sound, and she
hurried on noiseless as a spirit. One of the shutters was ajar,
admitting a few gleams of light, by which she could see to unbolt the
door.

She was out in the air at last; the first step was taken in safety--in
her turn she flew towards the cypress tree. She was under its shadow,
the branches writhed and moaned like living things, the moon shot in and
out of the gathering clouds, and cast a flickering, uncertain light
about that was more terrible than the deepest gloom.

As she stood in the depth of the shadows, a man came out from the thick
darkness that lay under a neighboring clump of white pines, and drew
close to her.

"I have been here some time," he whispered. "Everything is ready out
yonder--rather rough work for a gentleman, but take it as a proof how
ready I am to help you, even after all the money is paid in. But do you
know that Mellen has been here?"

"I saw him--I know it; we have no time!"

"Fortunately, he will know why the earth is broken up, having done it
with his own hands," said the man, with a suppressed laugh, that made
Elizabeth shudder. "Better still, he has left the spade--threw it down
in angry disappointment. That is fortunate, for mine was partly disabled
out yonder: now show me the exact spot."

She had no need to search, only too well she knew the place. Night and
day for weeks the dread spot had been with her, in every dream