"Oh, no," replied Dick, "it's quite optional; Lady Rookwood will give as much, and make no mouths about it. Soho, lass! What makes Bess prick her ears in that fashion?--Ha! carriage-wheels in the distance! that jade knows the sound as well as I do. I'll just see what it's like!--you will have ten minutes for reflection. Who knows if I may not have come in for a good thing here?" At that instant the carriage passed the angle of a rock some three hundred yards distant, and was seen slowly ascending the hill-side. Eager as a hawk after his quarry, Turpin dashed after it. In vain the sexton, whom he nearly overthrew in his career, called after him to halt. He sped like a bolt from the bow. "May the devil break his neck!" cried Peter, as he saw him dash through the brook; "could he not let them alone?" "This must not be," said Luke; "know you whose carriage it is?" "It is a shrine that holds the jewel that should be dearest in your eyes," returned Peter; "haste, and arrest the spoiler's hand." "Whom do you mean?" asked Luke. "Eleanor Mowbray," replied Peter. "She is there. To the rescue--away." "Eleanor Mowbray!" echoed Luke--"and Sybil?----" At this instant a pistol-shot was heard. "Will you let murder be done, and upon your cousin?" cried Peter, with a bitter look. "You are not what I took you for." Luke answered not, but, swift as the hound freed from the leash, darted in the direction of the carriage. _CHAPTER VI_ _ELEANOR MOWBRAY_ ----Mischiefs Are like the visits of Franciscan friars, They never come to prey upon us single. _Devil's Law Case._ The course of our tale returns now to Eleanor Mowbray. After she had parted from Ranulph Rookwood, and had watched him disappear beneath the arches of the church porch, her heart sank, and, drawing herself back within the carriage, she became a prey to the most poignant affliction. In vain she endeavored to shake off this feeling of desolation. It would not be. Despair had taken possession of her; the magic fabric of delight melted away, or only gleamed to tantalize, at an unreachable distance. A presentiment that Ranulph would never be hers had taken root in her imagination, and overshadowed all the rest.