It was done. The waiter delivered Griffiths' message in the best parlour. I, from a distant peeping station, saw the gentleman walk to our room. I heard the door shut--the waiter stump away. Thrilling, throbbing with hope and fear, I walked up the passage to their parlour. Wrapped in her cloak, the hood drawn over her head, her hat in her hand, stood the fair expectant. 'O come,' said she, 'do let us hasten!' The day was gloomy, the passage was dark, I had drawn up my cape and drawn down my hat. My hand took her's. She tripped along. No creature was in sight. I caught her up in my arms, lifted her into the chaise, and we whirled off, just as the landlady came bustling up to the door. I had my cue of silence and reserve in the intelligence I had received from the waiter. During the first three miles, I neither spoke nor looked up. She, the while, clasping her hands and _muttering_, as the waiter called it. I heard her pronounce the names of Miss Ashburn, of Montgomery, and of some one else. For three miles, I say, we interchanged not one word: then, Walter, the first word betrayed me. And now what a list of sobs, tears, screams, prayers, and lamentations you expect! I have not one for you. She sighed, indeed, and a few drops forced a reluctant way; but she neither prayed, threatened, nor lamented. She demanded her liberty. She reasoned for her liberty; reasoned with a firmness collected, vigilant, manly, let me say. She remembers seeing me in the castle, and takes me for her uncle's agent. In truth, Walter, I suffer her to think it still; for I do not find, when carefully examined, that my own character and motives in this business possess much to recommend them. In a little glen, between two hills of which the barrenness of one frowns on the cultivation of the other, stands a farm, embosomed hid in secresy and solitude. No traveller eyes it from the distant heath. No horses, save its own, leave the print of their hoofs at its entrance. But even more than usual gloom and dulness now reigns around it. The lively whistle of the ploughman and hind no longer chear the echoes of the hill. The farm yard is emptied of its gabbling tenants. The master is dead, the stock sold, the tenants discharged, and one solitary daughter, with one solitary female domestic alone, remains to guard the house till quarter day shall yield it to a new tenant. 'Tis neither fit employment for my time to relate, nor for your's to read, the trifling adventures by which Griffiths became acquainted with this fair daughter, her circumstances and abode; nor how he wooed and won her love during our residence at Monkton Hall. At Griffiths' instigation, hither I brought Miss Valmont; and here, till your cash arrives, as in a place of trust and safety, do I mean to keep my treasure, although I am little more than three leagues distant from Monkton Hall, and scarcely four from Valmont castle.