Casting roughly aside those tender arms which clung to him so despairingly, poor Effie would have fallen to the ground but for another of the party, who, seizing her just as she was sinking, cried with mock pathos, “Here, pretty one, the fellow is a monster; here, I will take care of you—come, kiss me!” But Effie sprung from his arms, and clasping the knees of Crayford as she saw the heartless wretch moving on, “Belmont, my husband!” she cried, in tones of piercing anguish, “do not, O, do not leave me again; no, you will not be so cruel—take me with you!” “That’s cool, by heavens!—ha! ha! ha!” shouted Crayford, with infernal daring, “you are crazy, child! I am not your Belmont; perhaps this is he—or this,” pointing from one to the other of his companions. The look of wo with which the poor girl received this cruel speech, did not escape their notice, and, hardened as they were, they were moved to pity, and the rude jests died on their lips. Effie rose from her knees, and tottering a step forward, placed her trembling hand upon the outstretched arm of Crayford. With an oath he spurned her from him, when in his path there suddenly arose one whose cold, searching glance, struck terror to his guilty soul. “Crayford, I know you!” exclaimed the stranger. “This, then, is your infernal work; ay, tremble, thou base destroyer of innocence. Away, I say, ere I am tempted to do a deed shall shame my manhood!” Livid with rage, Crayford drew a dirk from his bosom, and rushed suddenly upon the stranger; but in an instant it was wrenched from his hand, then seizing the wretch by the collar, as he would a dog, he hurled him off the curb-stone, and with such force, as sent him half across the street, and then lifting tenderly the form of the fainting girl in his arms, bore her into the house. The reader will, of course, infer that Crayford and the stranger had met before. They had; nor was this the first dark deed to which the latter knew Crayford might lay claim. To draw our long digression to a close, suffice it to say, that it was the unfortunate Effie Day whom Florence had met while walking with Crayford, and that the gentleman whom she had pointed out to him in the picture gallery, was no other than the stranger of whom we have just spoken, and whose appearance had so perceptibly agitated her companion. CHAPTER V. We will now return to Florence, whom we left in a state of such cruel suspense, and it would be difficult to say, perhaps, which of the two at the moment she hoped to find the most sincere—Crayford or the unknown.