"Stop--stop!" said the knight, "stop one moment!"--He paused; he was all on the tremble; something seemed rising in his throat, but he gave a great gulp, and swallowed it. "Beatrice," said he, "what think you of--" his voice sank into a most seductive softness,--"what think you of--Beatrice Grey?" The murder was out:--the knight felt infinitely relieved; the knuckles of his left hand unclosed spontaneously; and the arm he had felt such a difficulty in disposing of, found itself,--nobody knows how,--all at once, encircling the gimp waist of the pretty Beatrice. The young lady's reply was expressed in three syllables. They were,--"Oh, Sir Guy!" The words might be somewhat indefinite, but there was no mistaking the look. Their eyes met; Sir Guy's left arm contracted itself spasmodically: when the eyes meet,--at least, as theirs meet,--the lips are very apt to follow the example. The knight had taken one long, loving kiss--nectar and ambrosia! He thought on Doctor Butts and his _repetatur haustus_,--a prescription Father Francis had taken infinite pains to translate for him:--he was about to repeat it, but the dose was interrupted _in transitu_.--Doubtless the adage, "There is many a slip 'Twixt the cup and the lip," hath reference to medicine. Sir Guy's lip was again all but in conjunction with that of his bride elect. It has been hinted already that there was a little round polished patch on the summit of the knight's _pericranium_, from which his locks had gradually receded; a sort of _oasis_,--or rather a _Mont Blanc_ in miniature, rising above the highest point of vegetation. It was on this little spot, undefended alike by Art and Nature, that at this interesting moment a blow descended, such as we must borrow a term from the Sister Island adequately to describe,--it was a "Whack!" Sir Guy started upon his feet; Beatrice Grey started upon hers; but a single glance to the rear reversed her position,--she fell upon her knees and screamed. The knight, too, wheeled about, and beheld a sight which might have turned a bolder man to stone.--It was She!--the all but defunct Rohesia--there she sat, bolt upright!--her eyes no longer glazed with the film of impending dissolution, but scintillating like flint and steel; while in her hand she grasped the bed-staff,--a weapon of mickle might, as her husband's bloody coxcomb could now well testify. Words were yet wanting, for the quinsy, which her rage had broken, still impeded her utterance; but the strength and rapidity of her guttural intonations augured well for her future eloquence. Sir Guy de Montgomeri stood for a while like a man distraught; this resurrection--for such it seemed--had quite overpowered him. "A husband ofttimes makes the best physician," says the proverb; he was a living personification of its truth. Still it was whispered he had been content with Doctor Butts; but his lady was restored to bless him for many years.--Heavens, what a life he led!