She opened the door and glided noiselessly into the hall, I an unseen shadow at her side. She made her way unerringly through the darkness to the staircase, and down to the lower passage. The dining-room door stood ajar, and in the dimly lighted interior, tables, spread for the wedding feast, glittered. She turned from the sight with a shudder, even when she passed softly through the room to another door, standing also ajar. She paused before it with her hand pressed upon her heart, looking into the room beyond. A handsome, haughty old man sat by a table with a small box of papers open under his hand, while on the other side of the table, stood a tall negro, black as ebony. The old man took a handful of gold from his pocket, and pushed it across to the servant, saying: "Here, Daniel, I make you a present of this for your faithfulness. Are the papers all here? Yes, I see. Herman Vandala has an unpleasant way of haunting my thoughts to-night; but I will not regret what has been done—I will not. It was the only sure way to separate them, cruel as it might seem to brand an innocent man with dishonor. Pshaw! it served his presumption right, and some day, when Euphemia is a happy wife, I will make restitution. To-morrow will see the triumph of my hopes and plans," he said, as though to himself, He leaned back in his chair, his fine, proud face softening; but the listener shivered, and trembled like a leaf, her beautiful face ghastly pale. She turned and groped her way across the room, and up-stairs again, and I—I, who felt the agony rending her, could only walk at her side in spirit, not in flesh. "So they plotted—they deliberately wronged him, and sent him to his death. My God! and I believed him guilty!" She was calm, but madness shone in her eyes. "To-morrow," she laughed low and strangely—"to-morrow I’ll be the bride of death. Oh, I’ll cheat them of their triumph! Black Pond will hide the secret of my disappearance, for not even my father cares to go there, so many superstitions and dark traditions surround it." She opened a door, and entered an oratory. Wax lights burned on a small altar; the incense of flowers filled the air. A white cross gleamed in the dim light, and the pictured faces of saints looked down from the walls. The influence of the place seemed to soften her. "Mother of Christ, forgive them, and receive my poor broken spirit. Intercede for me," she prayed, falling to her knees on the cushion before the altar, with clasped hands and head bowed low. "I am friendless—friendless here on earth: death alone can save me. Pitying Christ, have mercy. Thou dost understand."