"Come, and at once; come, quickly. We must
be there before–before—"

"Before the young lady can get to the place.
Well, from what you say of the spot in which
she was last seen, I think, on reflection, we may
easily do that. I am at your service, sir. But
I should warn you that the owners of the house,
man and wife, are both of villanous character—
would do anything for money. Mr. Margrave,
no doubt, has money enough, and if the young
lady chooses to go away with Mr. Margrave, you
know, I have no power to help it."

"Leave all that to me; all I ask of you is to
show me the house."

We were soon out of the town; the night had
closed in; it was very dark in spite of a few
stars; the path was rugged and precipitous,
sometimes skirting the very brink of perilous
cliffs; sometimes delving down to the sea-shore
—there stopped by rock or wave—and painfully
rewinding up the ascent.

"It is an ugly path, sir, but it saves four
miles; and anyhow the road is a bad one."

We came, at last, to a few wretched fishermen's
huts. The moon had now risen, and revealed
the squalor of poverty-stricken ruinous hovels;
a couple of boats moored to the shore; a moaning,
fretful sea; and, at a distance, a vessel, with
lights on board, lying perfectly still at anchor in
a sheltered curve of the bold rude shore. The
policeman pointed to the vessel:

"The yacht, sir; the wind will be in her favour
if she sails to-night."

We quickened our pace as well as the nature
of the path would permit, left the huts behind us,
and, about a mile farther on, came to a solitary
house, larger than from the policeman's description
of Margrave's lodgment, I should have
presupposed: a house that in the wilder parts of
Scotland might be almost a laird's; but even in
the moonlight it looked very dilapidated and
desolate. Most of the windows were closed, some
with panes broken, stuffed with wisps of straw;
there were the remains of a wall round the house: it
was broken in some parts (only its foundation left).
On approaching the house, I observed two doors,
one on the side fronting the sea, one on the other
side facing a patch of broken ground that might
once have been a garden, and lay waste within
the enclosure of the ruined wall, encumbered with
various litter—heaps of rubbish, a ruined shed,
the carcase of a worn-out boat. This latter door
stood wide open—the other was closed. The
house was still and dark, as if either deserted or
all within it retired to rest.

"I think that open door leads at once to the
rooms Mr. Margrave hires; he can go in and out
without disturbing the other inmates. They used
to keep, on the side which they inhabit, a beer-
house, but the magistrates shut it up; still it is
a resort for bad characters. Now, sir, what shall
we do?"

"Watch separately. You wait within the
enclosure of the wall, hid by those heaps of
rubbish, near the door; none can enter but what you
will observe them. If you see her, you will
accost and stop her, and call aloud for me; I shall
be in hearing. I will go back to the high part of
the ground yonder, it seems to me that she
must pass that way; and I would desire, if
possible, to save her from the humiliation, the — the
shame of coming within the precincts of that
man's abode. I feel I may trust you now and
hereafter. It is a great thing for the happiness
and honour of this poor young lady and her
mother, that I may be able to declare that I did
not take her from that man, from any man from
that house, from any house. You comprehend me,
and will obey? I speak to you as a confidant—
a friend."

"I thank you with my whole heart, sir, for so
doing. You saved my sister's life, and the least
I can do is to keep secret all that would pain
your life if blabbed abroad. I know what
mischief folks' tongues can make. I will wait by
the door, never fear, and will rather lose my
place than not strain all the legal power I
possess to keep the young lady back from sorrow."

This dialogue was interchanged in close hurried
whisper behind the broken wall, and out of
all hearing. Waby now crept through a wide
gap into the enclosure, and nestled himself
silently amidst the wrecks of the broken boat, not
six feet from the open door, and close to the
wall of the house itself. I went back some
thirty yards up the road, to the rising ground
which I had pointed out to him. According to
the best calculation I could make— considering
the pace at which I had cleared the precipitous
pathway, and reckoning from the place and time
at which Lilian had been last seen, she could not
possibly have yet entered that house— I might
presume it would be more than half an hour
before she could arrive; I was in hopes that, during
the interval, Margrave might show himself,
perhaps at the door, or from the windows, or I
might even by some light from the latter be
guided to the room in which to find him. If,
after waiting a reasonable time, Lilian should
fail to appear, I had formed my own plan of
action; but it was important for the success of that
plan that I should not lose myself in the strange
house, nor bring its owners to Margrave's aid—
that I should surprise him alone and unawares.
Half an hour, three quarters, a whole hour thus
passed— no sign of my poor wanderer; but signs
there were of the enemy, from whom I resolved,
at whatever risk, to free and to save her. A
window on the ground floor to the left of the
door, which had long fixed my attention because
I had seen light through the chinks of the
shutters, slowly unclosed, the shutters fell back,
the casement opened, and I beheld Margrave
distinctly; he held something in his hand that
gleamed in the moonlight, directed not towards
the mound on which I stood, nor towards the
path I had taken, but towards an open space
beyond the ruined wall, to the right. Hid by
a cluster of stunted shrubs, I watched him
with a heart that beat with rage, not with