Never had Burgo passed so wearisome a day as that which followed Miss Roylance\'s second interview with him. He was burning for the moment to come when he should see her again, but the hours seemed to mock him, and the slow afternoon to drag itself out indefinitely. It was not merely because he looked forward to being able, with her help, to achieve his freedom that he so longed to see her again; it was quite as much, even more perhaps, for her own sake, and because she had cast over him a spell of enchantment which he had neither the will nor the power to struggle against. He had set eyes on her but twice, and yet already he was her slave manacled and helpless. "I thought in my ignorance that I loved Clara Leslie," he said to himself as he paced his prison from end to end, "but I didn\'t know the meaning of the word. I know it now." And yet this woman to whom he had yielded up his heart without a struggle was both a cripple and a hunchback, and three days before he had never as much as set eyes on her! It was one of those riddles which Love takes a mischievous delight in propounding, but of which it is the merest waste of time to try to find a reasonable and common-sense solution.

At length the afternoon deepened into dusk, and Burgo lighted his lamp, knowing that the longed-for moment could not be much longer delayed. Mrs. Sprowle had been in the habit of bringing him the meal which with her went by the name of supper some time between seven and eight o\'clock, and Dacia\'s two visits had been timed about an hour later. To-night, however, not a little to Burgo\'s surprise, Miss Roylance followed close on the old lady\'s heels. His first glance at her face told him that she had important news of some kind to communicate to him--indeed, she hardly waited for Mrs. Sprowle to hand in her plates and dishes and make room at the aperture before she began.

"This is the last opportunity I shall have of seeing you here, and my visit must be limited to a very few minutes. Signor Sperani returns by the last train to-night, and will no doubt at once take charge of the key of the underground passage. Sprowle has been sent by her ladyship on an errand into the village, and has entrusted the key to his mother meanwhile, otherwise you would not have seen me at all. And now, here is a parcel for you, containing a couple of files and a length of rope. Oh dear! oh dear! Never did I think that I should come to be mixed up with such an adventure as this!"

"The service you have done me, Miss Roylance, is one I can never hope to be able to repay."

The words were of the simplest, but there was something in the way they were spoken which brought a flush to Dacia\'s cheek, and caused her to turn her eyes another way.

"Pray don\'t think me too presumptuous," resumed Burgo, "but there was a certain letter which you promised to write."

"It was written last night, and my own hands posted it before ten o\'clock this morning. And now, Mr. Brabazon, as time is so short," she went on, bringing back her eyes to face his, "let us go in for a little supposition. Suppose, then, that my letter has the desired effect--or rather, that the telegram which will result from it, will have the effect of taking Lady Clinton all the way to Lausanne on a fictitious errand; and suppose, further, that you succeed in effecting your escape--what then?--what is supposed to follow?"

"With myself at liberty, and Lady Clinton temporarily out of the way, the course I propose to myself is a very simple one. In her ladyship\'s absence there will be no one with either the right or the power to refuse me access to my uncle."

"It seems to me that even if Lady Clinton be got rid of, you will still have to reckon with Sperani and his dogs."

"As for the dogs, a couple of revolver shots may be counted on to give them their quietus; while as regards Sperani, I trust that man to man, I should pretty well prove a match for him."

Dacia shook her head. "There must be no shooting," she said, "and no unseemly struggle. A far better plan will be for you and me to communicate with each other through Mrs. Sprowle--I to let you know when her ladyship has set out for Lausanne, and you to inform me when all is in readiness for your escape. After that it can be easily arranged for me to admit you to the house unknown to any one."

"That two heads are better than one I shall never doubt for the future," said Burgo with a smile.

"But, assuming that you are successful in reaching your uncle, what is to follow? Is it your intention to stay by his side, and be found there by Lady Clinton on her return?"

"Certainly not. My first object will be to endeavour to induce my uncle at once to leave the Keep, of course in my charge, and I don\'t think the dear old boy will need much persuasion. Where he may choose to go, whether back to London, or abroad, or elsewhere, will, of course, rest with himself; but if I have any voice whatever in the matter, it will be to some place to which Lady Clinton will be denied admittance. When once my uncle has been rescued from her clutches, he must never be allowed to fall into them again."

"She is a very determined woman, Mr. Brabazon."

"As I have ample reason to know. Still, I hope to be able to set her at defiance. When my uncle gets clear away from her he will be a different man; and if he will only hold fast to his determination not to see her, and to communicate with her only through his lawyer, she will be helpless. That he will be prepared to make her a liberal allowance, I do not doubt; but the question is not one of money only, but of life and death."

"Your last words, Mr. Brabazon, remind me of a singular dream I had the other night. I was in some place, I don\'t know where, among a number of figures, each of whom, except myself; wore a domino and mask. Each figure came up to me in turn, and having whispered in my ear the same words from Shakespeare: \'A deed without a name,\' passed on. By-and-by there was only one figure left, but his whisper was different from the others: \'If you would know why I am not still among the living, ask her, was what he said. Then for a moment he drew his mask aside, and I saw the face of my Uncle Innes, as I saw it for the last time, when he lay in his coffin. And then with a cry I awoke. But there is Mrs. Sprowle calling to me from the foot of the stairs. I have overstayed my time. On no account must her son come back and find me here. Good-bye, Mr. Brabazon, till I meet you again, a prisoner no longer. You may rely upon hearing from me as soon as I have anything to tell you."

To-night she gave him her hand as frankly as she might have done had he been her brother; nor did her colour come, nor did she suffer her eyes to drop before the steadfast flame of his. But, as she made her way downstairs half a minute later her heart was throbbing tumultuously, and she felt as if she were aflame from head to foot.

In the early hours of next morning, long before daylight, Burgo set to work with one of the files Dacia had brought him. The height of the window compelled him to stand on a chair while he worked. He found that he would have to file through both the bars with which the window was guarded, and even then the aperture would be none too large to allow of the passage of his body. Judging from the fact that the bars were very little corroded by time or weather, Burgo concluded that they bad been a comparatively modern addition to the old building. He calculated that it would take him quite three or four days of stiff work, with a few hours of the night thrown in, before he reached the end of his task. Although he had no reason whatever to distrust Mrs. Sprowle, he decided that it might be advisable to keep her in ignorance of what he was about. The grating of the key in the lock below stairs always gave him due warning of her approach.

It was on the evening of the third day after his last interview with Dacia that Mrs. Sprowle handed Burgo the following note when she brought him his supper:

"Telegram to hand this forenoon. Lady C. started on her way to Lausanne by the four o\'clock train. She will get through to London in time to catch the Continental Express to-morrow morning. It is left to me and Vallance to look after Sir Everard during her absence. Let me know by return how you are progressing, and when you will be ready to take the next step.

"D. R."

To which Burgo replied:

"Everything going admirably. Shall be ready for next step to-morrow night. Let me know in course of to-morrow the hour and the place.

"B. B."

He had been hard at work with his file during a great part of the day, and after he had eaten his supper he lighted his pipe and began the slow constitutional pacing from end to end of his prison chamber in which he spent some hours of each day. Yes, everything would be ready by to-morrow night, he told himself. One bar was filed completely through and removed and hidden behind his portmanteau, while five or six more hours of hard work would enable him to treat the other in the same way. But although he could not help exulting as he thought of what a few more hours would bring to pass, he was yet conscious of something tugging at his heartstrings which was far removed from exultation or gladness of any kind. He could not forget--it was a thought which haunted him waking or sleeping--that with the quitting of Garion Keep by his uncle and himself would be severed the solitary strand which for a little while had served to bind Miss Roylance and him so strangely together. Yes, they must part, and it was impossible to say whether they should ever meet again. Yet a voice within him whispered that they must meet again, that neither fate nor chance could avail to sunder them for ever. Already it seemed to him as if this girl had become an inalienable part of himself; he could no longer conceive of his future as wholly dissevered from her. He had seen her for the first time le............