not restore. Last night Ida might have been mine; but my honour was pledged; my property was staked, to the last coin, and the last foot of land; and my resolution was taken to escape from the torturing suspense in which I have lived so long, and to live to-day a free man either in ruin or success.

"It was nothing less than wise; but why quarrel with the accomplishment of your own desires?"

"She offered, she herself-think of that! to elope with me last night; and 1 rejected the offer, without being able, under the cursed circumstances, to utter a word in explanation."

"Truly, a pleasant predicament! But, courage! She will give you four-and-twenty hours' grace, or she is no woman. Had the proposal been a prudent one, I should say nothing; but I have ever observed, that when a girl takes a bit of devilry into her head, it is far from being easy to get it out again."

"You do not know her; and to speak frankly, Wolfenstein, you cannot comprehend her. At any rate, even were it possible to hope that she would forgive the insult on explanation, can I imagine that the heiress of Dallheimer would throw herself into the arms of one who, by his own confession, is a ruined gamester, a beggar, and a desperado?"

“Tut, tut, you do not know the sex. For a woman to love is to be in a dream, knowing that it is so; and yet acting, in spite of herself, as if all was reality. She takes beggary for riches; want for fulness; shrieking for laughter; a suit of rags for a robe of honour: yet feels at the same time that the whole is delusion. vain she will try to snap the bonds of this strong fancy; for twisted up as they are with her heart-strings (the heart and imagination being blended in woman, which in man are distinct), they must both break together."

In

"This may be true of the sex in general," said Benzel, with a sigh, "but there are those in whom the understanding is as powerful as the affections; and of such is Ida Dallheimer. Words, however, are useless; she is by this time a prisoner in the centre of her mother's house."

Words

Nay, now you talk like a man of sense. alone, in such a case, are indeed useless; but come→ there is a hand that never flinched from friend or foe! I know the house well, and, although it is close to a station of cavalry, I ask but your own assistance, and that of two of my servants, to liberate your mistress this very night!"

"Thanks, Wolfenstein! but it is scarcely possible that I should obtain her consent to such a measure, even had I an opportunity of getting speech of her, and dared to make use of it."

66

Surely not; you must set her at liberty first, and then give her the option to return to her bonds. No! Why then I wash my hands of you. But the sun begins already to peep over the hills, and it is time for us, spirits of darkness, to hide ourselves from daylight. Meet me at dinner, when we shall talk over the affair more coolly; and in the mean time, count among the friends, who are willing to serve you with heart and steel, the baron of Wolfenstein." And so saying he grasped the hand of his late adversary, who returned the pressure with fingers as cold and hard as marble, and entering the gate of Saint Adalbert, returned into the city.

When Carl was left alone, he debated with himself as to what it was necessary to do, not with regard to his mistress, for till night-fall he could not even approach her house, but with regard to himself. The baron had

said that he looked "like a man who had lost his last dollar," and this was literally the case. He had not only lost his last dollar, but what was still worse, had failed in procuring funds to stop the mouths of a crowd of importunate creditors. Before the dinner hour, when he had tacitly promised to meet Wolfenstein, he would in all probability be unable to procure one by his own order. His house was probably by this time in the hands of bailiffs; and, what was maddening to think of at the present moment, the blood-hounds of the law were perhaps already sent out in pursuit of his person. This was the day to which he had looked forward, half in hope, half in trembling, for many months. To meet

the payments, which could no longer be deferred, he had risked everything, and lost everything; and for the opportunity of making the desperate venture, he had, as it appeared, sacrificed his mistress herself.

It was necessary, however, to ascertain, not the extent of his danger, which he knew, but the precise moment of its approach; for the demon had already whispered in the depths of the gamester's heart, that, by means of a loan from one of his friends, he might yet be able, by some miracle of chance, to redeem himself from utter ruin. It was, at all events, necessary to attempt to secure his papers, and those little nothings which have no pecuniary value, but yet are more precious than gold to the possessor; and plunging into the thickest parts of the shrubbery, in the walks which occupy the site of what formerly were the ditches of the town, the once gay and gallant Carl Benzel stole round to the gate of Cologne like an assassin.

His caution proved to be necessary; for before reaching his own street, he was met by one of the servants, not yet steeled enough by his profession to be ungrateful, who had come out on purpose to inform his master that the house was already invested by bailiffs, and that officers were at this moment in search of his person in the various places of nocturnal resort. The game was now at a close. The city was shut against him. The only property he possessed in the world, besides the apparel he wore, was the guitar which still hung upon his shoulder. He thought of sending a message to the baron of Wolfenstein-but for what purpose? To beg? To him, without even the chance which the gaming table afforded-pecuniary assistance would not now be a loan, but a charity; and Carl, low as he had sunk, could not yet brook the humiliating idea.

On a small estate, in the neighbourhood of Borcete, that he had lately sold piecemeal, there was an old dilapidated building, which once boasted the name of chateau. It stood upon a parcel of land latest sacrificed, and had not yet, so far as he was aware, been taken possession of by the new owner. Carl had a liking to the place, from a tradition which told that, in

early times, it had been a stronghold of his ancestors; although in fact his family, according to all modern accounts, had but little claim to the honour of antiquity. It had even been his intention, or rather one of his favourite dreams, to re-build the chateau from its ruins ; and, in his earlier acquaintanceship with the Dallheimers, before his follies, or waning fortune, had compelled the prudent and worldly-minded mother to give him his congé, Ida and he had frequently wandered among its desolate courts, weaving together, as if with one imagination, the rose-coloured visions of love. This house of desolation was inhabited, till it should be claimed by the purchaser, by an old female servant of the family. The woman had been Carl's nurse; and when his attention was now drawn to her abode, as the only spot where he could hope to find a safe shelter from foes or foul weather, a pang shot through his breast while he remembered the neglect with which he had of late treated one, who had acted towards him a portion of the mother's part, and who had always looked upon him with a mother's affection.

Cursing the infatuation, which seemed to have changed even the current of his natural feelings, he walked hastily away, in the direction of the ruined chateau; but the morning was now considerably advanced, and the road was crowded with peasants, whose respectful salutations seemed to his conscious imagination to be fraught with significance. Unable longer to endure what he supposed to be their scrutiny, he determined to abandon his intention of seeking shelter till after night-fall, and to spend the day in wandering among the hills, and in recruiting his wearied senses by sleep in some retired wood. He had not forsaken the public road many minutes when he had reason to applaud his prudence; for a carriage, attended by horsemen, passed at full speed, and a handkerchief was waved to him from the window, which showed that the travellers knew him.

Turning away his head in a kind of panic, he quickened his pace almost to a flight, and had speedily the satisfaction of placing a hill between him and the faces

of his kind, which had now become objects either of fear or hatred.

It is not our purpose to follow his wanderings during this miserable day. When he slept, he awoke grappling with his visionary pursuers; or, having been taken, saw through the bars of his prison-window the nuptial procession of Ida, and broke his slumber in a vain attempt to tear them away. The day at length began sensibly to decline; a cold north-west wind blew in dreary gusts along the hills; the sky was gradually obscured by misty clouds, and by-and-by a heavy and continuous rain began to fall. It was now time to betake himself to the window of his mistress; and, insensible to the weather, Carl sprang with renewed energy towards the house of Madame Dallheimer.

It was not till he had cleared the garden wall that he paused. Perhaps his physical sufferings, including the want of food-although this was unfelt in the sensation of hunger-had combined with the agony of his mind to unnerve him; for he was under the necessity of leaning for some moments against a tree for support, while drops of cold perspiration stood upon his brow. If the fears of Ida were correct, and she had actually been removed into an inner apartment, what step was he to take? But if still accessible, in what mode was his avowal to be made? What was the purpose of his visit? Did he mean to tell her that he had refused the most precious of all gifts, that he might have time to rush into ruin, and render himself still more than ever unworthy of her? Was he to confess that, when he declared that "the sun should never again look upon his follies," it was only a base and unworthy juggle to cheat her understanding through her ear; for that at the very moment when he repeated the words, he was about to hasten from her presence to repeat a madness too monstrous for the eye of day? A strange confusion appeared to have stolen over his faculties. He forgot the nature of the deliberations in which he had been engaged for the last twelve hours. So far from being able to call to mind the words in which he had intended to have addressed his mistress, even the lead