I must e'en seek them and inquire." "Alan! my child!" He started at the voice, it was so unlike his mother's.

She had risen and flung her arm around him with a pressure so convulsive, he looked at her with terror.

There was no time to answer; a sudden noise usurped the place of the previous stillness--a struggle--a heavy fall; the door was flung rudely open, and an armed man stood upon the threshold, his vizor up, but even had it not been, the heart of the countess too truly told her she gazed upon her husband!.