"Howl like a hound in your craven fear!" shouted Miles, as his cousin groaned and writhed beneath the lash, helpless in that strong hand. "Come Mary, girl, look up; this is for your wrong, a coward's act--a cur's punishment. There," he continued, flinging him almost lifeless from him at last, and panting himself with the effort. "You'll remember the first meeting with Miles Tremenhere;--one thing more," he took down his mother's mandolin from its place. "Poor, senseless thing," he said, "yet speaking words of love to me, you have been made to look on desecrating words, deeds, and thoughts, in this man's presence. You have lost your purity, like all of us, since _she_ left you!" In his bitterness he forgot the suffering woman, who was weeping bitterly beside him. "Desecrated no more, speechless henceforth, and mute to all of the ruin around you!" he put the thing, which seemed as a breathing creature to him, beneath his foot, and with one stamp of his heel it flew into pieces. Crash after crash succeeded, until only a mass lay without shape on the floor. Marmaduke was speechless with terror and pain. "Come Mary, my girl, look up now!" said Miles, kindly taking her hand. "I have avenged you as well as I can; he will not forget us--come!" And, almost carrying the terror-stricken girl, he passed out by the corridor, carefully locking the door on the other side, to avoid interruption, and so he quitted his own halls. CHAPTER VIII. Minnie had been so severely lectured by all, about her too frequent visits to the cottage of Mary Burns, and other rambles in thoughtful loneliness, that she felt embarrassed how to act. We have seen Dora was not yet wholly in her confidence; there was as yet a barrier of three years' width between them, which she hesitated at overleaping at once--it was one separating girlhood from womanhood. She had no one to consult but herself, and in her great anxiety to know what had been decided upon for this poor girl, in whom she felt so much interest, as Mr. Skaife had informed her, that assuredly Tremenhere would decide immediately something about her, she resolved to rise with the early bird of morn, which rose to song and heaven beneath her windows, and seek Mary's cottage. Only the gardener was at work, as she brushed the dew off the smoothly turfed lawn, at six the morning, after Tremenhere's meeting with his cousin, and bidding the man a kind good-morning, she hastened through the shrubbery, then light as a fawn skimmed over the path-fields, and reached Mary's cottage. The shutters were closed, and all in stillness; but the hour was so early, that she hesitated about awakening the inmates. For some moments she stood irresolute, and walked round the spot. There is something in internal desolation, which always leaves an outward trace on the features, as on an abode. Something of this she felt; and at last gently rapped at the door--all was silent; then she repeated it--and each time with the like result.