“Leave you,” said Maud, “I dare not; I have a duty to do,—it is to follow you. Wherever you go, Andrew Britton, there will you find me. No, no! I cannot leave you; I sometimes think I am dead, and that there is my spirit haunting you.” “We shall see,” muttered Britton; “spirits have never troubled me yet. The paper, I say!—The paper that you set such store by! I must and will have it.” “Never!” “Then take the consequences.” He again raised his knife, and was in the very act of bringing it down to plunge it into the breast of the hapless creature, when his eyes fell upon the form of Sir Frederick Hartleton, who rose up on the parapet between him and the water. This sudden appearance, rising apparently from out of the river, had all the effect which Sir Frederick expected it would. Britton, for the first time in his life, was affected by superstition. He could, on the spur of the moment, imagine the tall dusky form that thus rose before his very eyes, and, as it were, from the bosom of the Thames, to be no other than some supernatural being interposing between him and his victim. He started back in horror, then, dropping the knife, he rushed precipitately from the spot. Maud burst into a wild laugh, and before Sir Frederick Hartleton could speak a word to detain her, she fled in a contrary direction to that which Britton had taken, with great speed. Hastily springing over the wall, Sir Frederick, as well as he was able by the dim light, pursued the flying woman, his object being the same as Britton’s, namely, to possess himself of the paper in Maud’s possession, and which, he doubted not, was in some way near or remotely connected with the chain of mysteries that enveloped the crimes of Squire Learmont and his associates in guilt, the savage smith and the man named as Gray. Now and then he could see the flutter of her garments as she rushed along by the wall; and as often as he did, he redoubled his speed with the hope of overtaking, while she was compelled, from the nature of the ground, to go forward in nearly a straight line; for he well knew that after passing the river wall, which did not extend much further from the broken nature of the open country, and several hedges and plantations that were close at hand, he might be completely foiled till daylight in his attempt to follow the poor creature, who most probably fancied she was flying from Britton. “Maud! Maud!” cried Sir Frederick Hartleton, with the hope that she would recognise that his voice was not that of the savage smith.