"Oh, my Cap! my dear Cap! I needn't threaten you! I shall never have the chance to be cruel to you again--never! You'll perish in this terrible storm and then--and then my tough old heart will break! It will--it will, Cap! But demmy, before it does, I'll break the necks of every man and woman, in this house, old and young! Hear it, heaven and earth, for I'll do it!" All things must have an end. So, as the hours passed on, the storm having spent all its fury, gradually grumbled itself into silence. Old Hurricane also raged himself into a state of exhaustion so complete that when the midnight hour struck he could only drop into a chair and murmur: "Twelve o'clock and no news of her yet!" And then unwillingly he went to bed, attended by Mrs. Condiment and Pitapat instead of Wool, who was supposed to be out in search of Capitola, but who was, in fact, fast asleep on the floor of a dry cellar. Meanwhile, where did this midnight hour find Capitola? CHAPTER IV. THE HIDDEN HOLLOW. On every side the aspect was the same, All ruined, desolate, forlorn and savage, No hand or foot within the precinct came To rectify or ravage! Here Echo never mocked the human tongue; Some weighty crime that Heaven could not pardon. A secret curse on that old Building hung And its deserted garden! --_Hood's Haunted House._ Cap was a bit of a Don Quixote! The stirring incidents of the last few months had spoiled her; the monotony of the last few weeks had bored her; and now she had just rode out in quest of adventures. The Old Hidden House, with its mysterious traditions, its gloomy surroundings and its haunted reputation, had always possessed a powerful attraction for one of Cap's adventurous spirit. To seek and gaze upon the somber house, of which, and of whose inmates, such terrible stories had been told or hinted, had always been a secret desire and purpose of Capitola. And now the presence there of a beautiful girl near her own age was the one last item that tipped the balance, making the temptation to ride thither outweigh every other consideration of duty, prudence and safety. And having once started on the adventure, Cap felt the attraction drawing her toward the frightful hollow of the Hidden House growing stronger with every step taken thitherward. She reached the banks of the "Demon's Run," and took the left-hand road down the stream until she reached the left point of the Horse-Shoe Mountain, and then going up around the point, she kept close under the back of the range until she had got immediately in the rear of the round bend of the "Horse Shoe," behind Hurricane Hall.