Lyon County times. [volume] (Silver City, Nev.) 1874-1907, 1891-07-18

slew ner.
On one Of these occasions, moved by
q strange impulse of womanly compass
sion which she herself hardly under
stood, she took his hand in both her own
and pressed it to her lips. The strong
man started as if stung by viper,
.clasped her passionately to him for one
moment, and kissed her as If his whole
soul went into the caress, and then
thrust her 6ercely away and rushed
headlong from the room.
The morning after this strange out
burst the prince suddenly announced to
her that he must leave her that very
day, on an errand which might detain
him for several weeks, and before she
had time torecover from her amazement
at this unexpected news lfor hitherto he
had hardly let her out of his sight, and
would never allow her to 60 beyond the
castle gates .alone) he was actually gone,
and she stood watching his lessening
figure as he spurred his black horse along
"a narrow. zigzag. broken path, which
skirted the brink of a precipice so terrific
| that few men would have cared to pass
1
| it even at walk.
But just then she caught fragment
of the talk of two passing peasants below
her, who, like herself, had paused to
watch the reckless course of the distant
horseman.
"Uncle," said the younger of the two,
who was a stranger in that neighbor-
hood, ''if yon prince of thine always
rides as madly as this, he hath done well
to marry again SO soon. lest the race Of
Keretsenyi should end with him."
'.He hath naught to fear on that score,
nephew" answered the older man sol
emnly. "It was foretold to him long
ago, by q tongue which cannot lie, that
no living thing. man or beast, shall have
power to touch his life, and that, when
his hour comes, he shall 60 down alive
into the gravev'
Madeleine was almost ashamed TO find
how immeasurably relieved she felt by
Keretsenyi's departure; but before many
days were ever she had good cause to
wish him back again. In that lifeless
atmosphere the exciting influence Of
his fierce feverish vitality was like the
plunge of an avalanche into a still
mountain lake; and now that he was
gone the gloom and silence and utter
loneliness of this abode of the dead were
almost more than she could bear.
1t was not long, too, before she dis
covered that the ghosthke attendant
who peopled her solitude were kseping1
stealthy but incessant watch upon all
hov vrytriCh wxyao x.x,ax, l,o-5,-
to endure than the jealous vigilance Of
her terrible bridegroom had been. When
she strolled through the neglected garden
or the wide, bare courtyard, she would
suddenly catch sight of q black robed,
silent form dogging her steps like q
haunting shadow. She could not walk
the battlements without seeing a pale,
lean, corpselike face peering out at her
from an adjoining loophole. No OPP
position, indeed, was made to the con-
tinuance of her morning rides. but when
ever she ordered out her horse two of
the mute phantoms that guarded her in
stantly mounted their horses to bear her
company. 1t was plain that for any
victim once caught in these fatal tolls
there was no escape but death; and she
felt instinctively that death itself was
already lowering over her, and that its
stroke would not be long delayed.
And now came a passing spell Of wet
and stormy weather that lasted for sew
eral days, during which Madeleine, un-
able to venture out, employed her en-
forced leisure in exploring the interior
of the castle, many parts Of which were
still quite new to her. She was all the
more inclined to occupy herself in this
way because here, and here alone, she
was left unmolested by the ceaseless
vigilance of the spies who dogged her
every movement elsewhere.
In the course Of one of these rambies
she came upon a long, narrow, gloomy
passage, which she followed without
knowing why. The rooms that opened
out Of it bore such marks Of neglect and
decay as showed that they must have
lain uninhabited for years; but midway
along the corridor she met with an even
more striking token Of disuse and aban-
donment-the doorway of room which
had been actually bnilt up, as if it were
never to be occupied again.
This of itself would have been nothing
very remarkable in such a place. but
Madeleine was startled to perceive by
the freshness Of the work that this room
must have been closed up within the last
few years.
OF what dark and mysterious tragedy
had these voiceless stones been the mute
witnessed Had her terrible husband, like
other men of whom she had read, walled
mp one of his enemies alive in this dis
NAL retreat to perish by the slow tort
ure of thirst and famine, or had he?---
But at that thought she flung out her
hands wildly, as If thrusting away from
her some horrible specter. and was just
turning to go back when she happened
to notice that one of the posts of this
blocked up door had parted slightly
from the surrounding woodwork. leav-
ing crack through which it was posi-
BILE to see into the mysterious chamber.
Driven by an impulse beyond her con-