“There was too much left to chance in that business,” retorted the stranger. “That night at Arandale should have rid us of all anxiety on the subject. I ought to have answered his first question by blowing out his brains! And that, before I palsied my arm with that cursed fencing! Never, certainly, were there time and place so well calculated for committing an act of the kind with perfect impunity. Since then, it has never been possible to get near him, with any thing like a chance of escape. I deserved, however, to fail for using such pitiful half measures, where so much was at stake.” “I never thought his removal so very necessary,” observed Henry. “Fool!” replied the stranger, “How, if the public disclosure had been made under almost any other circumstances? When can you come to ⸺?” he added. “I must first,” replied Henry, “join the Euphrasia, to avoid, in case of failure, any thing like proof against me. It is impossible for her to have the most remote guess who you are, so that were she even to escape, while she had not yet seen me, all would still be safe! In short, we had better not meet even for a moment, till we meet at the altar.” The stranger paused, as if considering the subject; then, standing up, said, “True! you set out immediately.” Henry replied in the affirmative; and thus they parted. CHAPTER XXVI. “The semblance spoke; but how faint was the voice, Like the breeze in the reeds of the pool!” When Julia began to recover sensation, she found herself in a reclining position, while the object on which her eyes first opened, appeared to her bewildered imagination, to be the mast of the boat in which she had so lately sat. And, indeed, the wreck of what had once been a bed, on which she now lay, having neither curtains nor top, the one naked foot-post which remained standing was not very unlike the single mast of a small boat. The apartment was without other furniture. The ceiling, or rather roofing, consisted of the inside of the slating, which descending obliquely from the opposite wall, passed close over Julia’s face, and met the floor just behind her head. In the centre of the floor, which was laden with straw and dust, was an open trap door with the head of a ladder appearing a foot or two above it, while on one corner or shaft of the said head of the ladder, hung a lantern, the only source of light the apartment could boast.