"Yes," answered Haidee readily, "let it be to-night." The listener's heart gave a great fluttering bound and then sank like lead in her bosom. Through all that she had suffered the desire of life, and the hope of ultimate release had remained strong in her breast. How could it be otherwise with one so young and lovely, and for whom life held so much? Now all her hopes were blighted in the dreadful knowledge just come upon her. Death in the horrible form of murder was about to blot out her young and tender life forever from the earth. She clasped her hands together, and repressing a strong desire to shriek aloud, lest that cry of anguish should precipitate her fate, listened on. "Who will do the deed?" asked Peter, who was a coward in spite of his braggadocio. "I will!" said Haidee, fiercely. "I will get my revenge upon her thus. Presently, when she is asleep and dreaming perhaps of her home and her lover, I will steal in upon her and clasp my hands around her white little neck and strangle her to death." "It is settled, then," said old Peter, with a fiendish chuckle of delight. "Get our pipes, now, Haidee, and let us sit up and wait till the time comes." Lily Lawrence dropped down upon the floor and lay there like one already smitten with death. "Oh, God!" she thought, "if I only had not listened I might indeed have been asleep, and death might have stolen on me unconsciously. How dreadful to lie here and wait for death each moment." She lay there shuddering and trying to pray as the fatal minutes crept on, each one bearing away on its swift sands the brief span of precious life yet left her. At each movement in the next room she shivered and started, thinking that old Haidee was about to come forth to execute her murderous task. How long she lay there weeping and praying she never knew, but at length she heard the clock in the lower hall strike ten. The next instant stealthy steps came gliding through the hall to her door. Already she seemed to feel the horrible clutch of old Haidee's hands about her warm, white throat, pressing out the life. CHAPTER XXVIII. "Oh, God spare me!" breathed Lily, clasping her hands in agony as she heard the key grate in the lock, and the hand of the murderess turning the knob of the door. At that instant, before the door opened, while but a moment intervened between Lily and a horrible death, a loud and hurried knocking was distinctly heard down-stairs. It was so startling, coming upon the previous utter stillness, that old Haidee darted back to her own room in a fright, and directly she and her husband were heard making a shuffling descent of the stairs. Lily arose upon her feet in a tumult of hope. "Who can it be?" she murmured. "Can it be possible that rescue is at hand?" The revulsion from despair and terror to instant hope was too great to be borne. Her slight form wavered an instant, then unconsciousness stole upon her and she fell prostrate on the floor.