“Bless you for the words!  I feared you had again been tempted.”

“So I have, lady, and apparently have yielded; but it was only to save you.  Listen to me, and I will disclose all the details of the plots which are even now ripening to ensnare you,”—­and Vernon, in a low tone, briefly narrated everything, and the means which were in operation to secure her safety.

“You must go to Bellevue to-morrow, there to meet my father and Captain Carroll,” said he.

The color came to her pale cheek, at the mention of her lover’s name.  She felt that Vernon meant to be true to her, and true to himself.  And it required no persuasion to induce her to acquiesce in the arrangements.

“But, Hatchie—­must I leave him in prison?  It is not a meet reward for his fidelity.”

“It cannot be avoided, Miss Dumont.  I will see him to-day, and when his honest heart knows that you are in safety, he will be just as happy in a prison as in a palace.  He shall be set at liberty in a few days.”

“I hope he may.  Does this De Guy accompany you?”

“No; but Maxwell says he will reach Bellevue as soon as we do.”

“Why is this?  Why does not Maxwell present himself, and urge his infamous proposals?”

“I know not, unless it be that De Guy is the more artful of the two.”

* * * * *

Let us change the scene to the next day, at the abode of Mr. Faxon.

Dalhousie and his wife, by the kind attentions of their host, were restored to a comparatively healthy state.  The lady had suffered much in her physical and mental constitution, and a shade of deep melancholy rested upon her handsome features.  She could not forget the horrors of the dungeon in which she had been confined.  It seemed a great epoch in her life; all before it was strange and undefined, while every trivial incident since was a great paragraph in her history.

Mr. Faxon was seated in his library, surrounded by his guests.  The affairs of the Dumont family had again been discussed, for to them they were full of interest.

The good minister feelingly expatiated upon the bitterness of the heiress’ lot, brought up as she had been amid all the refinements of polished society, whose sensibilities were rendered doubly acute by nature and the circumstances which environed her, to be thus degraded into the condition of a base-born, despised being,—­to be so suddenly hurled from honor and opulence,—­it was a dreadful blow!  So feelingly did he narrate the particulars, so tenderly did he describe the loneliness of her position, that his hearers were deeply affected, and Delia shed a flood of tears.

“I too have been a wanderer, though a voluntary one, from the home of my father,” said she.

“Nay, Delia,” said Dalhousie, tenderly; “do not revert to your own experience.  Remember you are not strong enough to bear much excitement.”