CHAPTER XI.
THE VAILED PASSENGER.
We must return to the night of the murder, and to the man and woman whom Salome Levison heard, and did not merely "dream" that she heard, conversing under her balcony at midnight.
When left alone in her dark and silent hiding-place, the woman waited long and impatiently.

Sometimes she crept out from her shadowy nook, and stole a look up to the casements of the castle, but they were all dark and silent, and closely shut, save one immediately above her head, which stood open, though neither lighted nor occupied.
She had waited perhaps an hour when stealthy footsteps were heard approaching, and not one, but two men came up whispering in hurried and agitated tones.

She caught a few words of their troubled talk.
"You have betrayed me! I never meant, under any circumstances, that you should have done such a deed!" said one.
"It was necessary to our safety.

We should have been discovered and arrested," said the other.
"You have brought the curse of Cain upon my head!" groaned the first speaker.
"Come, come, my lord, brace up! No one intended what has happened.

It was an accident, a calamity, but it is an accomplished fact, and 'what is done, is done,' and 'what is past remedy is past regret.' If the old man hadn't squealed--" "Hush! burn you! the girl will hear!" whispered the first speaker, as they approached the woman under the balcony.
"Rose, here; don't speak.