ed.

At length, with a sigh drawn from his very soul, he roused himself,
and, taking a candle, he made the round of the chamber. The door by
which he had entered was the only outlet, and it was of stout oak,
clamped with iron, and locked. For windows, a pair of loopholes, slits
so narrow that on the brightest day the room must be twilit, pierced
the wall towards the lake. If the room had not been used of old as a
prison, it made an admirable one; for the ancient walls were two feet
thick, and the groined roof was out of reach, and of stone, hard as the
weathering of centuries had left it. But not so hard, not so cruel as
her heart! Flavia! The word almost came from his lips in a cry of pain.

Yet what was her purpose? He had been lured hither; but why? He tried
to shake off the depression which weighed on him, and to think. His
eyes fell on the table; he reflected that the answer would doubtless be
found among the papers that lay on it. He sat down in the chair which
was set before it, and he took up the first sheet that came to hand, a
note of a dozen lines in her handwriting--alas! in her handwriting.

"SIR," so it ran,--

"You have betrayed us; and, were that all, I'd still be finding it
in my heart to forgive you. But you have betrayed also our Country,
our King, and our Faith; and for this it's not with me it lies to
pardon. Over and above, you have thought to hold us in a web that
would make you safe at once in your life and your person; but you
are meshed in your turn, and will fare as you can, without water,
food, or fire, until you have signed and sealed the grant which
lies beside this paper. We're not unmerciful; and one will visit
you once in twenty-four hours until he has it under your hand, when
he will witness it. That done, you will go where you please; and
Heaven forgive you. I, who write this, am, though unjustly, the
owner of that you grant, and you do no wrong.

"FLAVIA MCMURROUGH."

He read the letter with a mixture of emotions. Beside it lay a deed,
engrossed on parchment, which purported to grant all that he held under
the will of the late Sir Michael McMurrough to and for the sole use of
Constantine Hussey, Esquire, of Duppa. But annexed to the deed was a
separate scroll, illegal but not unusual in Ireland at that day,
stating that the true meaning was that the lands should be held by
Constantine Hussey for the use of The McMurrough, w