"Take it," he cried, madly, "take it, and with my curse! I am baffled! baffled! In the moment of my revenge the golden wine of happiness has turned to poison on my lips! I have loved you madly, and made you my bride, but you can never, _never_ be _wife_ of mine! These arms may never hold you, these lips never press your own! Go, girl; go out of my sight forever! Go, before in the madness of my love and despair, I lay you dead at my feet!" Jaquelina needed no second bidding. The outlaw chief had turned away with his dark face hidden in his hands. She slipped from her seat, and gliding softly across the carpeted floor, passed between the heavy velvet hangings and disappeared in the perilous gloom and darkness of the cave beyond, leaving the outlaw chief solitary and alone, stricken by some mysterious, blighting secret. CHAPTER XXII. When the chandelier was relighted in the chapel they found Ronald Valchester lying like one dead upon the floor before the altar. The abductor of his bride had given him a murderous thrust from a knife in the dark, and his snowy vest was dyed with the crimson current that poured from his side. He was in a deep and death-like swoon, and when he opened his dim eyes again, he found himself supported on the white arm of Violet Earle, while a flood of tears rained from her dark blue eyes. The doctors came and examined him. They found that the wound was not so bad as was at first supposed. It was a flesh-wound in the left lung, and, though dangerous, not necessarily fatal. They thought the assassin had aimed for the heart, but had missed it in the darkness. They carried him to Laurel Hill, and Walter Earle and every other man in the neighborhood set out on a hot pursuit of the daring abductor of the beautiful girl-bride. Public indignation was thoroughly aroused, and public opinion pointed unerringly to the perpetrator of the terrible outrage. All remembered that Gerald Huntington had sworn an oath of vengeance against Jaquelina Meredith the night on which she had effected his capture. Meanwhile Ronald Valchester, lying in a cool, white chamber at Laurel Hill, and lovingly tended by careful hands, was racked by the pain of his wound and the still greater anguish of his mental suffering. He had lost her, his bonny, dark-eyed bride. She had been torn from his side in the very moment when she was about to be made his own forever. One ever-recurring question fevered and tormented his harassed mind. To what terrible fate had his darling been devoted by her ruthless foe? He moaned and tossed in restless delirium all night. They could not soothe him. Opiates failed utterly of effect. The doctors said it was very bad for his wound. If a fever set in they could not answer for the consequences. But the terribly bereaved bridegroom heeded nothing they said. He lay all night with his eager, restless eyes fixed upon the door.