“Unwell!” exclaimed his guest, starting to his feet; “you do not say so! Ha! unwell!—I must see her, then. Perhaps I may be able to restore her to health. I have some skill in the healing art. Come, Foster,” he added, with a sudden ferocity and determination of manner, which contrasted strongly with the benevolent purpose he affected, “conduct me to her this instant—this instant, I say, Foster.” And he drew a sword from beneath the cloak in which he was enveloped. “What means this conduct, my lord?” inquired his amazed and alarmed host. “Mean, sirrah! mean!” replied the Lord of Hermitage—“why, it means that I am about to do your daughter an honour.” And, without waiting for the guidance he had demanded, he rushed out of the apartment—when he was instantly joined by two of his followers, with drawn swords in their hands—and proceeded to search for the chamber in which the object of his villany was confined. Having quickly found the apartment, the ruffians, after in vain soliciting admittance from its inmate, whom the previous noise had alarmed, began to force the doors. While they were thus employed, Foster, who had, in the meantime, armed himself, and brought two or three of his men to his assistance, suddenly rushed in amongst the assailants, and a close and sanguinary contest immediately ensued. At this moment, the unfortunate young lady, hearing her father’s voice raised in anger, and the clashing of swords in the passage which led to her apartment, undid the door, and frantically rushed into the midst of the conflict. Fatal indiscretion! She had scarcely stepped from her room, when the thrust of a sword (not, however, meant for her) reached her heart, and she fell, lifeless, amongst the feet of the combatants. In a few seconds afterwards, her unhappy father also fell, mortally wounded; when the fiends, perceiving the purposes of their villany thus fearfully frustrated, instantly quitted the house, mounted their horses, and fled. This new atrocity of the Lord of Hermitage—for he had been guilty of many, although, perhaps, this was the most hideous of all—excited, when it became known, such a universal feeling of horror throughout the country, that the miscreant, powerful as he was, was obliged to fly the kingdom, and betake himself to a foreign land, to avoid the popular vengeance with which he was threatened. But his crime was of too deep a dye to escape due punishment, even on earth. There was one whose fierce and enduring thirst for revenge he could not evade—one to escape whom all his windings and doublings were vain, and from whose arm, neither distance of place or time could ultimately protect him.