One evening about dusk, as the Marquis of Douro was returning from a shooting excursion into the country, he heard suddenly a rustling noise in a deep ditch on the roadside.[5] He was preparing his fowling-piece for a shot when the form of Lady Ellrington started up before him. Her head was bare, her tall person was enveloped in the tattered remnants of a dark velvet mantle. Her dishevelled hair hung in wild elf-locks over her face, neck, and shoulders, almost concealing her features, which were emaciated and pale as death. He stepped back a few paces, startled at the sudden and ghastly apparition. She threw herself on her knees before him, exclaiming in wild, maniacal accents: ‘My lord, tell me truly, sincerely, ingenuously, where you have been. I heard that you had left Verdopolis, and I followed you on foot five hundred miles. Then my strength failed me, and I lay down in this place, as I thought, to die. But it was doomed I should see you once more before I became an inhabitant of the grave. Answer me, my lord: Have you seen that wretch Marian Hume? Have you spoken to her? Viper! Viper! Oh, that I could sheathe this weapon in her heart!’ 5 The first twelve words in this sentence have been erased from the MS.—C. W. H. Here she stopped for want of breath, and, drawing a long, sharp, glittering knife from under her cloak, brandished it wildly in the air. The marquis looked at her steadily, and, without attempting to disarm her, answered with great composure: ‘You have asked me a strange question, Lady Zenobia; but, before I attempt to answer, you had better come with me to our encampment. I will order a tent to be prepared for you where you may pass the night in safety, and, to-morrow, when you are a little recruited by rest and refreshment, we will discuss this matter soberly.’[6] 6 It is the custom in Verdopolis, where perhaps forty or so noblemen, with their attendants, go to shoot or hunt wild beasts or birds in the desolate and uninhabited Mountains of the Moon, to form a sort of camp for their mutual protection and defence. These camps sometimes contain upwards of a hundred individuals.—_Note by Author_. Her rage Was now exhausted by its own vehemence, and she replied with more calmness than she had hitherto evinced: ‘My lord, believe me, I am deputed by Heaven to warn you of a great danger into which you are about to fall. If you persist in your intention of uniting yourself to Marian Hume you will become a murderer and a suicide. I cannot explain myself more clearly; but ponder carefully on my words until I see you again.’