The colonel heard these words, and watched the figures of the unknown and Gulian, as they passed from the garden walk under the shadow of the porch, and into the hall door. And then he waited,--O how earnestly and with what a tide of hopes, suspicions, fears!--for the re-appearance of the unknown! Five minutes passed. "The boy has not had time to confess _the secret_,"--the thought almost rose to the colonel's lips.--"If this unknown man returns to town, leaving Gulian here, all will yet be well." The hall-door opened again, was locked, and the form of the unknown, in cloak and sombrero, once more appeared upon the garden walk. "To town, Felix, as fast as you can drive. I must be back within two hours." "Yes, my lord." He entered the carriage,--it turned,--and the horses dashed up the narrow road at full speed. "Two hours!" ejaculated Tarleton, as the sound of the wheels died away. "In two hours, 'my lord!' you will find the nest robbed of its bird." Determined at all hazards to rescue the person of the boy, Gulian, and bear him from the old mansion, he opened the wicket gate, and, passing along the garden walk, approached the silent mansion. The wind sighed mournfully among the leafless branches, and not a single ray of light illumined the front of the gloomy pile. The colonel passed under the porch, and tried the hall door; it was locked. With a half-muttered curse, he again emerged from the porch, and from the garden walk, once more surveyed the mansion. Could he believe his eyes? From a narrow window, in the second story of the western wing, a ray of light stole out upon the gloom--stole out from an aperture in the window curtains--and trembled like a golden thread along the garden walk. "The window is low,--the room is a part of the olden portion of the mansion,--that lattice work, intended for the vines, will bear my weight; one blow at the window-sash, and I am in the chamber!" Thus reflecting, the colonel, ere he began to mount the lattice work, looked cautiously around and listened. All was dark; no sound was heard, save the low moan of the wind among the trees. Tarleton placed the revolver in one pocket, and buried the bowie-knife in its sheath. Then he began cautiously to ascend the lattice work, along which, in summer time, crept a green and flowering vine; it creaked beneath his weight, but did not break,--in a moment he was on a level with the narrow window. Resting his arms upon the deep window-sill, he placed his eye to the aperture in the curtains, and looked within. He beheld a small room, with low ceiling, and wainscoted walls; a door, which evidently opened upon the corridor leading to the body of the mansion; a couch, with a canopy of faded tapestry; the floor of dark wood, uncarpeted, and its once polished surface thick with dust; a bureau of ebony, surmounted by an oval mirror in a frame of tarnished gilt. The light stood upon the bureau; and, in front of the light, an alabaster image of the crucified.