Even the pitiless, revengeful heart of the man who stood there smilingly unfolding his horrible news was hardly prepared for the awful metamorphosis that came over the smug, smooth-tongued, purring parson at those words. With a scream that rang through the house from top to bottom, and froze the blood of all who heard it, the miserable man leaped at his tormentor's throat like a wild cat at bay. But he might as well have leaped at a rock. The powerful arm was raised, and the mere shock of the recoil sent the poor wretch sprawling. He lay--his livid features working in mania--the foam flying from his lips in flakes. The other glanced at him a moment, then opened the door. "You, James?" he said, coolly, to the trembling flunkey, who had not been many yards from the door during the interview. "You, James? Your boss is taken bad, I guess. Better see after him. Tell him, when he comes round, I'll call again by-and-bye, and give him further particulars." With the same easy smile upon his lips he passed through the crowd of frightened women-folk who met him on the stairs, and who shrunk back before his glittering eyes and towering form, and gained the front door. Then he smiled in fearful glee. "The last time I passed out this way," he said to himself, half-aloud. "The last time I passed out this way, I was saying my time would surely come--and it has. Aha! my exemplary and most reverend cousin I think I'm nearly even with you now--very nearly!" CHAPTER THIRTY NINE. IN THE TWILIGHT OAKWOOD. Yseulte Santorex was slowly wending her way homeward through the now leafless oak woods which overhung Elmcote. The lonely ride looked ghostly and drear in the early dusk of the November afternoon. A chill and biting wind moaned through the covert, and now and again a pheasant or rabbit scuttling among the undergrowth, raised a stealthy rustling sound that would have been somewhat startling to any other of her sex who should find herself belated in that lonely place. But in this solitary pedestrian it inspired no fear, only a sweet, sad recollection--albeit reminding her of the most perilous moment in her whole life. For it brought back vividly, by an association of sound and surroundings, the shadowy timber belt, and the stealthy tread of the grim painted savages advancing to seize her on the lonely river-bank in the far Wild West. But what a change had befallen her! The happy, even-tempered girl who had so gleefully left her home in keen anticipation of a period of adventurous travel amid new and stirring scenes had disappeared, and this pale, wistful-eyed woman walking here seemed but the mere ghost of the Yseulte Santorex of yore.