Lionel opened his soft, bright eyes in a look of wide surprise, turned on Elsie a gaze of mingled admiration, sorrow, and deprecation, and, bowing to General Garnet, moved off to comply with his request. General Garnet grasped Elsie’s arm with a suppressed fierceness, and pulled her after him into the hall, thence out into the portico, and down the steps to the carriage door. Pushing her forcibly in, he jumped in after, pulled to the door, commanded the coachman to drive rapidly for Mount Calm, and was soon whirled away on the road to that place. He maintained a stern silence toward Elsie during the whole ride. Arrived at Mount Calm, he sprang from the carriage, took Elsie out, drew her arm roughly within his own, and pulled her up the steps. “Has your mistress retired?” was the first question he asked of the servant at the door. The man started at the fierce abruptness of his master’s tone and manner, and replied hurriedly that she had. “It is very well. Go wake up the housekeeper; ask her for the keys of the attic-room, and bring them to me yourself, with a night-lamp.” The man hurried away in dismay. And General Garnet remained there, still with his violent grasp upon Elsie’s arm. When the servant returned with the bunch of keys and the light: “Precede me upstairs, and on up into the attic,” said General Garnet; and grasping Elsie more tightly, he fiercely hurried her on, till they reached the first floor, and the wide hall into which the family chambers opened. “Father, this is my chamber door. I wish to retire,” said Elsie, pointing to the door on her left. But her father hurried her past it. The servant was now going up the attic steps, but paused to look down upon the scene. “Father, what are you about to do?” asked Elsie, holding back. Her attire had been very much disordered by the violence with which she had been hurried in, her cloak and hood had fallen off below stairs; now her beautiful dress was tumbled, and her hair in wild disorder. “What are you going to do, father?” she asked again, drawing back. But he turned upon her sharply, shook her furiously, as though he would have shaken the life from out her; and then seeing the horrified gaze of the servant standing on the stairs, he exclaimed, “Up into the attic, and wait for me there, instantly, sirrah. And consider yourself already sold to a trader, for your insolence in watching me!” The appalled servant vanished up the steps, and the unmasked tyrant turned to Elsie, and tightening the grasp that he had never relinquished, dragged her to the foot of the attic stairs. Here the girl sank with all her weight upon him, upheld only by his hand. “Up, up the stairs with you!” he exclaimed fiercely. Elsie had too much physical strength to swoon, and too much presence of mind to scream. She would not have terrified her poor mother to no good purpose. Yet her agitation was so great, with augmented astonishment and terror, that she could not move.