The ear of Paul Lisimon, sharpened by anxiety, told him whence this shriek proceeded. It came from a long corridor to their left. They rushed down this corridor, and burst open the door at the end as a second shriek pealed through the building. The result is already known to the reader. The letter written by Silas Craig, which summoned Don Juan Moraquitos from the opera-box, was a part of the planter's base plot, and had been planned between him and the lawyer. The business relations between Silas and Don Juan were so complicated that it was easy for the artful attorney to occupy the Spaniard in discussing them till long after midnight. The two men sat talking till nearly three o'clock in that very apartment ornamented with the map of the United States, and communicating with the gambling-house in Columbia Street. But the two houses were separated by a passage of considerable length, and Don Juan was too far from his beloved daughter to hear that terrible shriek of distress which alarmed every player at the gaming table. * * * * * Upon the day on which Silas Craig, accompanied by the limbs of the law, entered the house of Gerald Leslie, taking with him desolation and anguish, Pauline Corsi and Camillia Moraquitos were once more seated in the boudoir of the Spanish girl. The Amazon had sailed from New Orleans, carrying Paul Lisimon away from danger of apprehension--away also from her he loved. Matters were rapidly drawing toward a crisis--within a few days the French governess was to become the bride of Juan Moraquitos. But the wealthy Spaniard had little of the aspect of a happy bridegroom. He rarely entered the apartments of either his daughter or Pauline Corsi, but he spent his hours in gloomy meditation in his study, and admitted no one to his presence. Camillia was cruelly distressed by this change, yet she dared not interrogate the haughty Spaniard. Sometimes she imagined that he reproached himself for contracting a second alliance which might lessen his daughter's wealth. "If he knew how little I care for the gold which others so value," she thought; "if he knew how happy I could be in the humblest home shared with those I love, he would not fear to rob me of a few thousand." The confidence commenced between Camillia and Pauline upon the day of Augustus Horton's plotted defeat had never been discontinued, and it was to the Frenchwoman alone that Camillia looked for hope and comfort. Strange anomaly of human nature! The ambitious and unscrupulous being who could stoop to purchase a wealthy husband by means of a vile and guilty secret, had yet some better feelings left. Pauline loved her pupil--loved her with the light love of a selfish nature it is true, but it is something that one spark of affection remained in her perverted nature. "You are sad, Camillia?" she said, as she looked up from her embroidery frame to watch the thoughtful face of the Spanish girl.