San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1891-03-18

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 stunS by viper,
clasred her passionately TO h;ta FOR one
moment. and kissed her as ii his whole
soul went into the caress, and then
thrust her fiercelv away and rushed
headlong from the room.
The morning after this strange out
burst the prince suddenly announced t.
her that he must leave her that very
dav, ON an errand which might detaiI
MIN for several weeks, and before she
had time to recover from her amazement
at this unexpected news (for hitherto he
had hardly let her out of his sight, and
would never allow her 10 go beyond the
castle gates alone) he was actually gone
and she stood watching his lessenine
figure as he spurred his black horse along
narrow, zigzag, broken path, which
skirted the brink Of a precipice so terrific
that few men would have cared to pass
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 O!
Keretsenyi should end with MINI"
He hath naught to fear on that score,
nephew" answered the older man sol
EMMY. 1T was foretold to him long
ago, by tongue which cannot lie, thai
no living thing, man or beast, shall have
;,ower to touch his life, and that, when
zis hour comes, he shall go down alive
into the gravel"
Madeleine was almost ashamed to find
how immeasurably relieved she felt by
Keretsenyi's departure; but before many
days were over 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 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 ghostlike attendants
who pcopled her solitude were keeping a
stealthy but inceSSaut watch upon all
her movements, which WAS even harder
to endure than the jealous vigilance of
her terrible bridegroom had been. When
she StroLed through the neglected garden
or the wide. bare courtyard, she would
suddenly catch sight of a black robed,
silent form logging her steps like a
haunting shadow. She could not walk
the battlemcnts without seeing a pale,
lean, corpSchke face peering out at her
from an adjoining loophole. No OPP
position, indeed, was made TO the con-
tiuuance 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. It 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 passing spell of wet
and stormy weather that lasted for sew
eral days, during which Madeleine, IN
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 logged her
every movement elsewhere.
In the course of one of these rambles
she came upon long. narrow, gloomy
passage, which she followed without
anOwing why. The rooms chat opened
opt 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 a room which
had been actually built up. rs if it were
never to be occupied again.
This of itself would have been nothing
very remarkable in such Il 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 Whist dark AID mysterious tragedy
had these voiceless stones been the mute
witnesses? Had ner terrible husband, like
other men of whom she had read, walled
ND one of his enemies alive III this dis