"Oh, spirit of my murdered mother!" exclaimed the young girl, lifting her clasped hands toward the effulgent sky. "Spirit of the unhappy and injured one, look down upon your daughter! May heaven forgive the sins of him who caused thy unhappy fate. May heaven pity and pardon my wretched father. I cannot curse him. Here on the grave of his victim, on the grave of a victim of a wicked and cruel prejudice, I pity and forgive him, for he needs all pity, since he has sinned."
At this moment the report of a gun sounded in the dell near at hand. Cora rose suddenly from her knees, pale and terrified. "Toby," she cried, "Toby, did you hear?"
Before the mulatto could reply, Mortimer Percy sprang through the parted branches that bordered the dell, and rushed toward where they stood. He recoiled upon seeing Cora.
"You here, Miss Leslie!" he exclaimed.
"Yes, yes. Tell me what was that report?"
"That! Some—some hunter, no doubt."
He had scarcely spoken when a second gun was fired.
"No, no, Mr. Percy!" cried Cora, wildly, "it is no hunter's carbine. A woman's unfailing instinct tells me of danger to him I love. Gilbert Margrave has been fighting a duel with your cousin."
Augustus Horton appeared as she spoke, walking backward and gazing intently into the dell.
"I must have surely hit him," he muttered.