Bending over her, the monk solemnly asked her if she had anything on her mind which she wished to confess.

He pressed a cup to her lips; and in a slow, gasping voice she laid bare the story of her life, and then went on to relate her feelings at her first meeting with Frank Masterton.

“When we parted, and I thought of the man to whom I was bound for life, what fearful feelings came across my bosom!  Sir Andrew Fleming my husband!  Was it possible?  I called to remembrance his look, his harshness, his jealousy, and, oh, God! oh, God! how I did hate that man!”

“Woman, woman!” exclaimed the monk, rising up from his seat, and casting back the cowl from his head, “Oh, God! oh, God! how I did love you!”

Lady Eleanor’s eyes fixed full upon his face.  Before her stood, in the garb of a Benedictine monk, Sir Andrew Fleming, her husband.  For a second she looked at him imploringly; then, with fearful strength, she rose from her recumbent position, and clasping her hands as if in the act of prayer, sank down upon her knees at his feet.  A low moan escaped from her lips.  She fell forward on the ground, and the spirit departed for ever from its clay.

The monk grasped his forehead with his hand, gazing at her with mingled feelings of love, anger, sorrow, and despair; then, raising the body in his arms, he placed it on the couch, and bending over it, three times printed a long kiss upon the pale lips.  Then, with his right hand thrust into his robe, he rushed out of the room.

Outside in the hall there came towards him Lord Masterton, General Dixon, and Henry.  A look of deadly, concentrated hate came into Sir Andrew Fleming’s eyes.  For a moment he paused; then, drawing a dagger from his bosom, he flung himself on Lord Masterton, and, with one blow, stretched him dead at his feet.

“Villain!” cried Walter Dixon.  “Atrocious villain!”

With the rapidity of lightning he drew his sword, and at once passed it through the body of the assassin.

To Walter Dixon, this scene of carnage, which he had planned with elaborate care, seemed to ensure his long delayed possession of the Penford-bourne estates.  Lady Eleanor was dead; her husband, Sir Andrew had fallen by his hand, and there were no lives now between him and his rightful possession of the property.  But once more he was doomed to disappointment.

As soon as he had an opportunity Henry sought out General St. Maur, and handed him the package he had received from Ireton.  The general pressed him to stay to dinner, and while the meal progressed, extracted from him something of his story.  When the meal was nearly over, the door suddenly opened, and a dog rushed to him, barking joyously.  It was his own dog—­the dog he had brought with him from Masterton House, and left with Lady Emily!  How had it come there?  Amazed, he was about to ask for an explanation, when Lady Emily herself stood before him.  In another moment the lovers were in one another’s arms.