t down, though
in reality it was more than half an hour when the sound of a galloping
horse aroused her.

She started to her feet, a cry of terror and dismay breaking from her.
It was still so dark that she could see nothing any distance away, but
the sound of that swiftly advancing horse made her heart beat with
fearful throbs.

Was it some pursuer coming in search of her?

Had her flight been discovered at home, and was her tyrannical
step-father coming to force her back into wearisome servitude? or, worse
yet, to sell her to another man equally brutal and unkind?

She started to flee, but, not being able to clearly distinguish the
road, while she was sadly bewildered by having been so suddenly aroused
from her sleep, she turned in the wrong direction and made straight for
the edge of the cliff.

It was very strange--as familiar as she was with every inch of the
ground between her home and Mentone--that she could have become so
confused and lost as to her location, and it was only when she caught
the ominous sound of the washing of the waves against the rocks below
that she became conscious of her danger.

But she was rushing at such headlong speed she could not save herself; a
low shuddering cry of terror burst from her lips as she suddenly lost
her balance; there was a short interval of silence, followed by a heavy
splash in the waters below, then the waves closed over the unfortunate
girl, and the ocean held the secret of her fate, as well as of Violet's
mysterious disappearance.

The cliff was very high at that point, and projected considerably over
the sea, which was very deep just there.

The girl sank at once to the bottom, and her clothing probably becoming
entangled among the rocks, her body was held there for some weeks, and
only disturbed and washed far below to the point where the fishermen had
found it after a storm of considerable violence.

It was, of course, unrecognizable, but every article which she wore
tended to prove that she was Vane Cameron's lost bride-elect. As such he
claimed her, without a doubt as to her identity, and, as we already
know, laid her to rest beneath the shadow of the venerable beech in one
corner of the church-yard at Mentone.

Lisette's parents never once suspected what her fate had been.

Upon discovering that she had fled, her iron-hearted master had started
in search of her, vowing that she should pay dearly for daring to run
away from him, and the future tha