Isidora and I turned our eyes on the scroll. It contained only a couple of initials--but annexed was a singular hieroglyphic, representing a heart perforated with a dagger. I smiled at the device, while Isidora became deadly pale. The wanderer saw the colour leave her cheek; and with a gentleness of voice and manner intended to remove alarm, she thus addressed my fair companion:-- “Lady, fear nothing; all will yet be well,--and by courage and caution danger shall be arrested. Go, and God bless you! Remember what I have said and you have promised. You have deadly enemies; but, Hector O’Halloran, you have one devoted friend. Ay, and humble as she is, trust to her; and if she do not save, she’ll die in the attempt.” Ere the words were spoken, the gipsy had vanished behind the bushes, leaving Isidora and myself in marvellous astonishment at a scene equally unexpected and incomprehensible. When we reached home, Mr. Hartley was waiting for us; and after dinner, when _tête-à-tête_, I recounted our adventure in the Park. He listened attentively to the detail, and asked me many questions, to which, however, I could give no satisfactory replies. “I am at a loss,” he said, “to fathom this singular affair. The woman could have no object in creating an unnecessary alarm, and yet her communication was so vague, that one cannot even guess what the danger is, or from what quarter it may be expected. Still her caution is not to be despised, and we must be upon our guard, until it pleases your swarthy friend to be more explicit than she has been. One course must be pursued. We must keep strangers at a distance, and look at all as enemies.” He took the note I had received from Mr. Clifford on the evening after our interview, and read it carefully. “It is his signature indubitably,” he murmured. “These well-remembered characters are not to be mistaken. Had he received you kindly--had he evinced the slightest symptom of abated displeasure when you addressed him--and did a hope remain that time could mitigate his callous feelings towards an erring child--I would, in that case, have suspected that in the monk you had that secret enemy of whom you have been warned to beware. But no--the Jesuit is secure; the dupe is all his own. He will be contented with rendering all future attempts to gain the old man’s presence unavailing. That he can effect, and more would be unnecessary. To me, the occurrence is involved in mystery too deep to be even guessed at, and it seems one that time only can unravel.”