"Afraid! Am not _I_ with you?"
"Let us go," murmured Zillah. "The place is dreadful; I can scarcely breathe."
"Take off your mask," said Lord Chetwynde; and with trembling hands he assisted her to remove it. His tone and manner reassured her. She began to think that the sound was nothing after all. Lord Chetwynde himself thought but little of it. His own excitement had been so intense that every thing else was disregarded. He saw that she was alarmed, but attributed this to the excitement which she had undergone. He now did his best to soothe her, and in his newfound calm he threw away that impetuosity which had so overpowered her. At last she regained something like her former self-possession.
"We must go back," said he at length. "Wait here a few moments, and I will go up the path a short distance to see if the way is clear."
He went out, and went, as he said, a little distance up the path.
Scarcely had his footsteps died out in the distance when Zillah heard a noise directly behind her. She started. In her agitated state she was a prey to any feeling, and a terror crept over her. She hastened out with the intention of following Lord Chetwynde.
The figure, crouching low behind the arbor, had seen Lord Chetwynde's departure. Now her time had come--the time for vengeance! His bitter words had destroyed all hope, and all of that patient cunning which she might otherwise have observed. Blind with rage and passion, there was only one thought in her mind, and that was instant and immediate vengeance. She caught her dagger in her hand, and strode out upon her victim.
The light which hung from the branch of the tree shone upon the arbor. The back-ground was gloomy in the dense shadow, while the intervening space was illumined. Hilda took a few quick paces, clutching her dagger, and in a moment she reached the place. But in that instant she beheld a sight which sent through her a pang of sudden horror--so sharp, so intense, and accompanied by so dread a fear, that she seemed to turn to stone as she gazed.
It was a slender figure, clothed in white, with a white mantle gathered close about the throat, and flowing down. The face was white, and in this dim light, defined against the dark back-ground of trees, it seemed like the face of the dead. The eyes--large, lustrous, burning--were fixed on her, and seemed filled with consuming fire as they fastened themselves on her. The dark hair hung down in vast voluminous folds, and by its contrast added to the marble whiteness of that face. And that face! It was a face which was never absent from her thoughts, a face which haunted her dreams--the face of her victim--the face of Zillah!
