A dark, brilliant starlight night, with a fresh wind that swayed the branches of the trees. Almost omnipotent is the religious heart; willing to sink all things for the salvation of the beloved. The means of escape, and of preventing the duel, were quickly devised by her suggestive mind. Her chamber was on the second floor front. A grape vine of nearly twenty years’ growth reached her window, and climbed up its side and over its top. The intertwined and knotted branches, thick as a man’s wrist, and strong as a cable, presented a means of descent safe and easy as that of a staircase. And once free of the house, the course of the brave girl was clear. There was no time to be lost. It was now half-past eleven o’clock. The household, except her father and the servant whom he had ordered to watch with him, was wrapped in sleep. Her father she knew to be deeply engaged in writing his will in the study. Forrest she supposed to be employed in cleaning the pistols in the back kitchen. There was nothing then to interrupt her escape but the dogs, who before recognizing would surely break out upon her. But there was little to dread from that circumstance. The barking of the dogs was no unusual event of the night. Any noise in nature, the footstep of a negro walking out, the spring of a startled squirrel, the falling of a nut or a pine cone, was frequently enough to arouse their jealous vigilance, and provoke a canine concert. Only when the barking was very prolonged was attention usually aroused. Of this contingency there was no danger. They would probably break out in a furious onslaught, recognize her and be still. But there was another serious difficulty. Margaret was very feeble; weeks of mental anguish, with the consequent loss of appetite and loss of sleep, had so exhausted her physical nature that not all the proverbial power of the mind over the body, the spirit over the flesh, could impart to her sufficient strength for an undertaking, that, in her stronger days, would have taxed her energies to the utmost. A restorative was absolutely necessary. A few drops of distilled lavender water--a favorite country cordial--gave her a fictitious strength. Then tying on her black velvet hood, and her short black camlet riding cloak, she prepared to depart. First, she bolted the door on the inside that her father might not enter her room to ascertain her absence. Then she softly hoisted the window, and with perfect ease crossed the low sill and stepped upon the friendly vine, where she remained standing while she let down the window and closed the blinds. Thus having restored everything to its usual order, she commenced her descent. Holding to the vines, stepping cautiously, and letting herself down slowly, she at length reached the ground safely. Now for the dogs. But they were quiet. Their quick instincts were truer than her fears, and she passed on undisturbed.