some pieces of furniture and cautiously groping her way; at length the door-handle turned, and then followed a silence. After an interval of a few seconds the girl returned.
"Well, Flora," whispered Mary, eagerly, as she approached, "is all still?"
"Oh! blessed hour! my lady, the door's locked on the outside," replied the maid.
"It can't be," said Mary Ashwoode, while her very heart sank within her. "Oh! Flora, Flora—girl, don't say that."
"It is indeed, my lady—as sure as I'm a living soul, it is so," replied she fearfully; "and it was wide open when I came up. Oh! blessed hour! my lady, what are we to do?"
"I will try; I will see; perhaps you are mistaken. God grant you may be," said the young lady, making her way to the door which opened on to the lobby. She reached it—turned the handle—pressed it with all her feeble strength, but in vain; it was indeed securely locked upon the outside; her project of escape was baffled at the very outset, and with a heart-sickening sense of terror and dismay—such as she had never felt before—she returned with her attendant to her chamber.
A night, sleepless, except for a few brief and fevered slumbers, crowded with terrors, passed heavily away, and the morning found Mary Ashwoode, pale, nervous, and feverish. She resolved, at whatever hazard, to endeavour to induce one of the new servants to convey her letter to Major O'Leary. The detection of this attempt could at worst result in nothing worse than to precipitate whatever mischief Blarden and his confederates had plotted, and which would if not so speedily, at all events as surely overtake her, were no such attempt made.
"Flora," said she, "I am resolved to try this chance, I fear me it is but a poor one; you, however, my poor girl, must not be compromised should it fail; you must not be exposed by your faithfulness to the vengeance of these villains; do you go into the next room, and I will try what may be done."
So saying, she rang the bell, and in a few minutes it was answered by the same man who had obeyed her summons on the day before. The man, although arrayed in livery, had by no means the dapper air of a professed footman, and possessed rather a villainous countenance than otherwise; he stood at the door with one hand fumbling at the handle, while he asked with an air half gruff and half awkward what she wanted. She sat in silence for a minute like the enchanter whose spells have been for the first time answered by the appearance of the familiar; too much agitated and affrighted to utter her mandate; with a violent effort she mastered her trepidation, and with an appearance of self-possession and carelessness which she was far from feeling, she said,—
"Can you, my good man, find a trusty messenger to carry a letter for me to a friend in Dublin?"
The man remained silent for some seconds, twisted his mouth into several strange contortions, and looked very hard indeed at her. At length he said, closing the door at the same time, and speaking in a low key,—
"Well, I don't say but I might find one, but there's a great many things would make it very costly; maybe you could not afford to pay him?"
"I could—I would—see here," and she took a diamond ring from her finger; "this is a diamond; it is of value—convey but this letter safely and it is yours."
The man took the ring from the table where she laid it, and examined it curiously.
"It's a pretty ring—it is," said he, removing it a little from his eye, and turning it in different directions so as to make it flash and sparkle in the light, "it is a pretty ring, rayther small for my fingers, though—it's a real diamond?"
"It is indeed, valuable—worth forty pounds at least," she replied.
"Well, then, here goes, it's worth a bit of a risk," and so saying he deposited it carefully in a corner of his waistcoat pocket, "give me the letter now, ma'am."
She handed him the letter, and he thrust it into the deepest abyss of his breeches pocket.
"Deliver that letter but safely," said she, "and what I have given you shall be but the earnest of what's to come, it is important—urgent—execute but the mission truly, and I will not spare rewards."
The man gave two short nods of huge significance, accompanied with a slight grunt.
"I say again, let me but have assurance that the message has been done," repeated she, "and you shall have abundant reason to rejoice, above all things dispatch—and—and—secrecy."
A woman, sitting in a chair, speaking to a man standing by her.
The man winked very hard with one eye, and at the same time with his crooked finger drew his nose so much on one side, that he seemed intent on removing that feature into exile somewhere about the region of his ear; and having performed this elegant and expressive pantomime for several seconds, he stooped forward, and in an emphatic whisper said,—
"Ne-ver fear."
He then opened the door and abruptly made his exit, leaving poor Mary Ashwoode full of agitating hopes.
Chapter LV.
The Fearful Visitant
Two or three days had passed, during which Mary had ascertained the fact that every door affording egress from the house was kept constantly locked, and that the new servants, as well as Blarden and his companions, were perpetually on the alert, and traversing the lower apartments, so that even had the door of the mansion laid open it would have been impossible to attempt an escape without encountering some one of those whose chief object was to keep her in close confinement, perhaps the very man from whose presence her inmost soul shrank in terror—she felt, therefore, that she was as effectually and as helplessly a prisoner as if she lay in the dungeons of a gaol.
Often again had she endeavoured to see the man to whom she had confided her letter to Major O'Leary, but in vain; her summons was invariably answered by the others, and fearing to excite suspicion, she, of course, did not inquire for him, and so, after a time, desisted from her endeavours.
Her window commanded a partial view of the old shaded avenue, and hour after hour would she sit at her casement, watching in vain for the longed-for appearance of her uncle, and listening, as fruitlessly, for the clang of his horse's hoofs upon the stony court.
"Oh! Flora, will he ever come?" she would exclaim, with a voice of anguish, "will he ever—ever come to deliver me from this horrible thraldom? I watch in vain, from the light of early dawn till darkness comes—I watch in vain, for the welcome sight of my friend—in vain—in vain I listen for the sound of his approach—heaven pity me, where shall I turn for hope—all—all have forsaken me—all that ever I loved have fallen from me, and left me desolate in this extremity—has he, too, my last friend, forsaken me—will they leave me here to misery—oh, that I might lay me down where head and heart are troubled no more, and be at rest in the cold grave. He'll never come—no—no—no—never."
Then she would wring her hands, still gazing from the casement, and hopelessly sob and weep.
She knew not why it was that Nicholas Blarden had suffered her, for a day or two, to be exempt from the dreaded intrusions of his hated presence. But this afforded her little comfort; she knew not how soon—at what moment—the monster might choose to present himself before her under circumstances of horror so dreadful as those of her present friendless and forsaken abandonment to his mercy—and when these imminent fears were for an instant hushed, a thousand agonizing thoughts, arising from the partial revelations of her late servant, Carey, occupied her mind. That the correspondence between her and O'Connor had been falsified—she dreaded, yet she hoped it might be true—she feared, yet prayed it might be so—and while the thought that others had wrought their estrangement, and that the coolness of indifference had not touched the heart of him she so fondly loved visited her mind, a thousand bright, but momentary hopes, fluttered her poor heart, and, for an instant, her dangers and her fears were all forgotten.
The day had passed, and its broad, clear