Like a broken lily, snapped by some fierce storm-wind, she dropped in his arms seemingly lifeless, dead for the present to her terrible position. He took her in his arms and held her close, murmuring: “How very, very fortunate that she fainted at this juncture! I am saved from using chloroform with its unpleasant after effects. Now, at the rate Jehu is driving, we shall reach the retreat I have chosen for our honeymoon before she revives! And, then, my bonny bird cannot escape her cage!” CHAPTER XXV. A GILDED CAGE. Ten minutes’ rapid driving brought Harold Castello to a dreary suburb of Washington, where the carriage paused before a large, square, brown-stone building standing in the midst of fine, well-kept grounds, that were walled in with stone, like a prison. It had once been the home of a wretched misanthrope, who had chosen to seclude himself from the world he hated behind the gloomy walls that hid him from his kind in almost prison-like solitude. The house stood far back from the road, and there was not another one within half a mile of this lonely place, on whose dreary walls the moonlight shone, giving it even a more than usually forbidding aspect by contrast with its silvery radiance. Harold Castello alighted from the carriage with unconscious Violet in his arms, and knocked at the high stone gate with sculptured dragons guarding the posts. From the windows of the dreary house, not a single ray of light gleamed forth, and it had the appearance of being totally uninhabited; yet Harold Castello was expected, for the heavy gates were promptly unlocked, and a man and woman were discovered standing obsequiously within. “Lead the way!” the young man said, impatiently, and bore his lovely burden to the house. The man unlocked the door and exposed a wide, tiled hall, with marble statues glimmering whitely here and there, and a broad, shallow stairway of black oak, dimly lighted by overhanging gas-jets. Up this splendid stairway Harold Castello followed the woman to a magnificent suite of rooms, luxuriously furnished in white and gold, glowing in warmth and light and perfume, from rare vases of exotic flowers. It was a veritable bridal-bower, and no expense had been spared to make it worthy the occupancy of a queen. Harold Castello entered the dainty boudoir and laid his stolen bride upon a soft, white couch, kissed her pale, cold lips, then turned to the woman, who had the air of a ladies’ maid. “She has fainted. Of course you will know how to restore her, Suzanne,” he said, anxiously. “Yes, monsieur, you may trust me,” smiled the trim maid. “Very well,” he said; then added: “And you may change her traveling clothing for a pretty white _robe de chambre_, so that she will feel more comfortable. When she is ready to see me I shall be waiting at the door.”