“The night before these weekly anniversaries they all gather; but during the rest of the time I am alone with Margery and the dwarf, and have learned more secrets about this place than they dream of. For the rest, there is little need of explanation--the dwarf and his crew have industriously circulated the rumor that it is haunted; and some of those white figures you saw with me, and who, by the way, are the daughters of these robbers, have been shown on the broken battlements, as if to put the fact beyond doubt. “Now, Sir Norman, that is all--you have heard my whole history as far as I know it; and nothing remains but to tell you what you must see yourself, that I am mad for revenge, and must have it, and you must help me!” Her eyes were shining with the fierce red fire he had seen in them before, and the white face wore a look so deadly and diabolical that, with all its beauty, it was absolutely repulsive. He took a step from her--for in each of those gleaming eyes sat a devil. “You must help me!” she persisted. “You--you, Sir Norman! For many a day I have been waiting for a chance like this, and until now I have waited in vain. Alone, I want physical strength to kill him, and I dare not trust any one else. No one was ever cast among us before as you have been; and now, condemned to die, you must be desperate, and desperate men will do desperate things. Fate, Destiny, Providence--whatever you like--has thrown you in my way, and help me you must and shall!” “Madame, madame I what are you saying? How can I help you?” “There is but one way--this!” She held up in the pale ray of the lamp, something she drew from the folds of her dress, that glistened blue, and bright, and steelly in the gloom. “A dagger!” he exclaimed, with a shudder, and a recoil. “Madame, are you talking of murder?” “I told you!” she said, through her closed teeth, and with her eyes flaming like fire, “that ridding the earth of that fiend incarnate would be a good deed, and no murder! I would do it myself if I could take him off his guard; but he never is that with me; and then my arm is not strong enough to reach his black heart through all that mass of brawn, and blood, and muscle. No, Sir Norman, Doom has allotted it to you--obey, and I swear to you, you shall go free; refuse--and in ten minutes your head will roll under the executioner's axe!” “Better that than the freedom you offer! Madame, I cannot murder!” “Coward!” she passionately cried; “you fear to do it, and yet you have but a life to lose, and that is lost to you now!” Sir Norman raised his head; and even in the darkness she saw the haughty flush that crimsoned his face. “I fear no man living; but, madame, I fear One who is higher than man!”