“Well, and when this demon of Gryphynshold came back?” “Oh, David Lindsay, what next happened is so horrible—so horrible that I shrink from speaking of it,” she said, with a shudder. “Then do not, lady dear,” he answered, gently. “Oh, but I must! It is on my mind and it must out! I have heard that he came back in the middle of a January night—a bitter cold, freezing night. His face, they say, was as black as a thunder cloud, and his eyes flashed like lightning. Without deigning a word to one of the servants, who came to attend him, he strode at once to the chamber of his poor young victim and ordered her to get up and dress herself, for she should leave his house that night!” “What an unheard-of monster!” exclaimed David Lindsay. “Oh, what a wretched maniac! for no man in his senses would have acted with such causeless cruelty. In vain the poor creature pleaded to know what she had done to offend him. He only cursed her and threatened to throw her from the window unless she dressed and departed at once. In vain she wept and begged to stay till morning. He told her, with many fierce curses, that by this delay she only trifled with his temper and her own life. Oh! oh, David Lindsay, he thrust that delicate creature forth in the freezing air of that bitter January night to perish on the mountains!” exclaimed Gloria, who had forgotten all her own troubles in recalling this horrible story. “And did she so perish?” mournfully inquired the young man. “I do not know. Some weeks from that night a party of hunters found the dead body of a woman on the mountain; but the birds of prey had found it first and it was unrecognizable! Oh, it is all too, too hideous! It was supposed to be the body of Dyvyd Gryphyn’s victim, and, as she was never heard of afterwards, it probably was hers.” “And what became of the madman? You were right in calling him a maniac, Gloria, for such he certainly must have been. You said that he was the last owner of Gryphynshold, therefore he must be dead. How did he die?” “Ah, like nearly all his fierce race! A violent death! On the very day after he had thrust his poor little white slave out into the winter night, he himself fell in a duel with one of the reckless companions of his demoniac orgies of that terrible night when he commanded the hidden beauty to come into their abhorrent presence.” “Killed in a duel at last,” muttered David Lindsay to himself. “Yes, and with him perished the last of the evil race of the Gryphyns of Gryphynshold.” “How came your father to purchase such an ill-omened piece of property?”