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sign of pity or faltering in any one of the cruel
faces before her, no gleam of human feeling in
the eyes that fastened themselves upon her face.
She was beyond the aid of human help, her wildest shrieks could not penetrate the walls that shut out the chapel from the chateau, and her tears and prayers could avail nothing with these three unserupulous, cruel men. She must die if they willed it, but she would die as: be- came a Beranger. So she stood there, calm and still, her eyes shining with a steady glow, the lace on her besom, and the blood-red rubies that fastened it, scarcely stirred by her. breathing; one little hand pressed against her heart, as she counted its slow, strong throbs, and waited.
“You are pale, madame. You are frightened, perhaps, by the gloom, of this place,” said the soft veice of Saint Evremondg, startling her as the hiss of a serpent would have done.
‘‘No, monsieur, I am not so cowardly as to be frightened by shadows,” said Vivienne.
“I am sorry you do not seem pleased with this room, madame,” suddenly observed the marquis. ‘‘I have had it furnished for a special purpose, and trusted you would like its Could not a per- son, given to religious, meditation, spend many hours here with comfort and profit?”
Vivienne glanced around the room, and saw that it, indeed, contained several articles of furniture which had at first escaped her notice, There was a low couch, covered with a pall, of black velvet, an oaken chair and table, and high up on the wall gleamed a silver crucifix, shining with a faint, mysierious radiance in the light of the flaming tapers.
A terror worse than that of death seized upon the unhappy young marquise. It was evident, then, that they did not. intend to take her life by violence, but to leave her.a prisoner in this horrible place, to die a lingering, agonized death by starvation, or, perhaps, to exist for years, shut out from the light of the sun, and the sound of voices.
Oh! it were better, more merciful, to plunge a dagger in her heart, and send her soul into the future; with one sobbing, quivering shriek from her dying lips.
But her husband’s eyes were on her, and she must speak, in spite of those choking throbs of her heart.
“Monsieur,” she said, gently, ‘a pure conscience, and a devout spirit, could make one happy, even here.”
“I am glad you think so,” madamé,” said the marquis, with a grim smile. ‘Come, messieurs, let,us return to the salon.”
Duroc lifted the candles from the. niche, and the marquis opened again the heavy door, and motioned to Philip to pass through it; but, with a formal bow, Saint Evremonde signed to the marquise to precede him.
Was she, then, to go back to life again? The reaction from despair to hope, however faint, alniost rendered her ineapable of motion; but, with an effort, she returned his courteous bow, and passed over the threshold.
She could not believe in the reality of her escape from this shadow of death. She walked like one in a dream, expecting yet some horror to start out upon her from the shadowy arches of the chapel, or to meet her in the long, dreary passages leading to the salon.
But they were passed in safety, and Vivienne was,at last permitted, worn out with terror and fatigue, to seek her own apartment, and pour out her thanks to that heaven which had pro- tected her in the midst of danger. And yet she felt it was only a respite, not an escape. There had been.a purpose, she well knew, in taking her to that vault. Suddenly she started from her knees. She had. divined the fell design of the marquis. Sooner or later she was to be incarcerated in this awful cell, and by a refine- ment of torture, she had been aequainted with her sentence in advance, so that its terrors might be before her, night and day, intensified by the uncertainty as to when the blow was to fall.
(TO BE CONTINUED.)
LINES.
BY FLOY FLOYD.
WHEN, borne on memory's airy wings,
My thoughts go back to thee,
I know that twilight to thee brings
Thoughts of the past and me;
It brings the words so fraught with pain
To both- we may not meet again.
And yet, though bitter is the thought,
Perhaps ' twas best to part,
Ere cold distrust had banished love,
Or time had chilled the heart;
For now we only know we met
To love, to part, but not forget.
When twilight's sombre shadows creep
O'er life's declining day;
When burst our souls their prison deors,
And break their bands of clay,
At last united may we soar
Through worlds of light,for evermore.
