“I have found a key to this door,” whispered Lena. “The master did not trust me very much, although I expatiated loudly on my fidelity. But, all the same, he locked us all into the house before he left. But I had this key ready before he arrived with his bride to-night, for I meant you to escape. I did not trust his story of a crazy wife who would swear that she had been carried off against her will. Step softly, dear, lest Monsieur Cook catch our footsteps as he dozes in the kitchen. There!” and with a sigh of relief, she pushed the fugitive bride out before her into the moonlighted garden. She drew Violet quickly along in the shade of some dense shrubberies. “Do you see that high stone wall? We shall have to scale it, because that cunning fox has locked the gate and carried off the key. Do you dare it?” “I should dare it if almost certain death awaited me on the other side, so that I escaped my enemy!” Violet whispered, dauntlessly. “Bravo! Come, then, for it may not be so dangerous in the ascent. I know there is an old step-ladder close by. Now, then, we go up easily enough, and drop down on the other side. There is the risk in the descent. Let us pray Heaven to save us.” “Amen!” murmured Violet, as she poised her lithe form on the wall for the spring. “Let me go first. Perhaps I can catch you,” cried Lena Lavarre; but both of them landed almost simultaneously on the yielding grass of the field at the back of the wall. CHAPTER XXX. “I WAS MAD WITH SHAME AND DESPAIR.” “Thank Heaven, we made the jump safely,” cried Lena. She caught Violet’s hand and drew her forward, saying, breathlessly: “There is an old deserted cabin in the woods about two miles from here where we can stay in hiding to-night. Harold Castello will not dream of searching for us there. Indeed, he will be sure to think we have gone straight to Mr. Cecil Grant, while in fact we shall be in quite an opposite direction.” Hand in hand they hurried toward the woods, their hearts beating wildly with the joy of escape. Poor Violet! she was dreaming of her love again, her dark-eyed Cecil, the idol of her dreams. “I shall seek my own relatives, the Meads, as soon as I can, and they will call in the law to free me from these hateful fetters. Then I can marry my own love, my Cecil,” she thought, fondly, as she hurried pantingly on by the side of her friend, poor, wronged Lena Lavarre. When they reached the safe, quiet shelter of the lonely woods, they slackened their pace and talked softly together. “Oh, if I were only free of this hated marriage!” cried Violet; and added: “Miss Lavarre, you told me Harold Castello deceived you by a mock marriage. Are you sure it was not legal?” “Call me Lena, dear lady; it sounds more friendly; and I am but a little older than yourself, not yet nineteen,” answered the girl. “Very well, Lena; and you shall call me Violet.”