"Where are you taking her?" Cecil fiercely asked.
"Home," was the stern reply.
"Home! Whose home? yours?"
"To her father."
"And by whose authority?" he said, in a low, hoarse, almost suffocated voice.
"Her own," was the crushing answer.
They passed on.
Cecil, amazed, bewildered, could merely utter, in a tone of sad and reproachful inquiry, "Blanche!"
A stifled, agonizing sob burst from her; but clinging closer to her protector, she hurried him on.
Cecil leaned against the banister for support. As Blanche reached the bottom of the stairs, she could not resist giving a parting look; and the anguish of the face which then met her eye so completely changed her feelings, that, forgetting all Captain Heath had said, she flew up the stairs and threw herself into Cecil's arms, exclaiming, "My own beloved, you will not send me from you?"