he came without delay, and the moment he entered the Countess's chamber, who had sent for him, she dismissed every other person from it.
Nothing but the solemn promise which Madeline knew Agatha to have given, to conceal the author of the Countess's sufferings could now have prevented her from asking who he was. The more she reflected on the horrible affair, the more mysterious it appeared to her, and the more astonished and perplexed she felt. How strange that a woman of the Countess's benevolence, whose temper was gentleness itself, whose heart was the seat of charity, and whose liberal hand ever kept pace with the wishes of that heart, should have provoked the enmity of any one. Yet not enmity alone provoked the attempt at her life; her words in the chapel on first regaining her senses, declared its being also prompted by some view of self-interest.—This was another mystery to Madeline, for she knew of none but Mon-
