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passing the prostrate skeleton, he walked between the pillars to the further part of the dungeon.

It was of smaller extent than the one they had just left, if, indeed they could be considered as separate dungeons.

Claudio immediately perceived a part of one of the walls, which did not present the same rugged appearance as the rest, and rapidly advancing, he saw that it was a door.

"Thank heaven!" cried Maurice, "here is at least a chance of escape."

"The door seems much smaller than the one we entered at," said Claudio, "and altogether of a slighter construction."

He struck it with the hilt of his sword, and it returned a sharp, clear sound.

Claudio started. "I was mistaken," he cried; "this door is the stronger of the two; it is plated completely with iron."

The light trembled in Maurice�s hand as Claudio spoke.

"I feel weak and sick at heart, Claudio," he said, faintly. "I wonder how many hours we have been without food?"

"Cheer up, Maurice," said Claudio, who was much alarmed at the faint tone in which his companion spoke.

"I I will endeavour," answered Maurice.

The same sensations of weakness, exhaustion, and extreme sickness, of which Maurice feebly complained, Claudio felt stealing over himself, and a pang of horrible agony came across his heart as he thought what must be their fate if they were to faint from bodily exhaustion in that fearful place

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By a powerful effort, Claudio rallied his strength, and exclaimed,

"Be of good cheer, Maurice, we shall yet escape. We are not doomed to end our career in this dismal dungeon. Here is still some wine in the flask; drink it, Maurice, drink it."

Claudio handed the little flask to Maurice, and, as he did so, a deadly sickness came over himself, and his limbs almost refused him support. He leaned heavily against the wall and groaned.

Maurice was dreadfully alarmed; he had swallowed a small portion of the wine, which had greatly recovered him, and he now cried, with frantic eagerness, as he handed the flask to Claudio, "Drink, Claudio, oh, drink! in mercy, drink �twill revive you!"

Claudio was upon the point of sinking to the earth in a swoon, when Maurice placed the flask to his pale lips. He mechanically drank a small portion, and the effect was instantaneous. The blood slowly returned to his cheeks, and he said in a faint and weak voice, "Where am I? Oh, Maurice, where am I?"

"Here, here!" cried Maurice, "drink more!"

Claudio did so, and his consciousness, which had nearly left him, now fully returned. He looked round him much revived.

"Oh, Maurice!" he said, "we must soon leave this place, or we are lost, lost even beyond the hope of redemption."

"I can tell, by the consumption of the pieces of candle, that we must have been here very many hours," replied Maurice. "Let us, Claudio, try with our swords to cut a passage through the door at which we entered."

"How could it have become closed?" said Claudio.

"I perceived," replied Maurice, "that as we entered, it seemed to have an inclination to close probably from the construction of its hinges; but I quite forgot the spring in the deep interest and anxiety of the moment."

"Come, let us hasten," cried Claudio.

They immediately repaired to the compartment of the dungeon in which lay the skeleton, and Claudio, drawing his poniard, as being the best adapted weapon for the purpose, at once commenced operations upon the massive door.

His hand, however, was tremulous, and he did not possess his usual strength; but small splinters came from the door in answer to his efforts, and it was evident to them both that the work of cutting through the door would be one of immense time and labour. They, nevertheless, relaxed not in their exertions, but worked on with what vigour and strength they were able to bring to the task.

When, by means of his poniard, Claudio had cut away some portion of the door, Maurice relieved him, and with his sword removed the loosened fragments. Thus, each of them occasionally resting, they worked for upwards of two hours at the massive door, which they found to be of solid oak, and so thickly studded with iron nails, as to render the progress of their efforts very difficult.

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Still they had made but a small hollow in the door a hollow which they felt sure could not extend above one-third of the entire thickness.

"If we could penetrate right through the door," said Maurice, "our swords would soon complete the work."

"Alas!" cried Claudio, "I grow fainter and weaker each minute."

As he spoke, his poniard, striking against one of the thick nails, snapped in two.

"Now we are indeed lost!" he cried.

"Claudio, Claudio!" cried Maurice, in a voice of agony, "do not despair Heaven may yet help us."

"It alone can save us," said Claudio.

He sunk to the ground as he spoke.

"For the love of Heaven," cried Maurice, wildly, "rouse yourself, Claudio. If you give way, all is indeed lost."

"I I can die here," said Claudio, faintly.

"No, no," cried Maurice, "rise, rise, for God�s sake rise."

"I I am quite quite happy," said Claudio. "Maurice, farewell! I I must sleep."

"No, no; a sleep here is a sleep of death Claudio, Claudio!"

"A pleasant langour," said Claudio, "creeps across my brain; the the birds are singing, and the green valleys are are beautiful."

"Oh, this is too horrible," cried Maurice, clasping his hands wildly.

" �Tis a sweet moss-grown bank," said Claudio, "and and thou art here too, my first, my only love I I should be happy."

"Claudio! Claudio!" shrieked Maurice, and the echoes of the dungeon repeated in mocking accents Claudio! Claudio!

"The murmur," continued Claudio, his voice sinking fainter and fainter, "the murmur of the streamlet is is so sweet; the sunshine is so bright I I think I could even lie down here and and die."

"He is dying! he is dying!" cried Maurice, wringing his hands.

"The green trees," said Claudio, "the sweet valleys the mountains are are melting fast away away away."

Suddenly Maurice uttered a cry of joy and hope.

"The key! the key!" he shouted, "the old key!"

He hurriedly and with trembling hands searched the pockets of Claudio, and drew forth the old rusty key, which they had found in the vaulted passage.

"Saved! saved!" he shouted, as he rushed to the small door in the farthest half of the dungeon.

He thrust it into the lock with the strength of despair, he turned it, and in the next moment, he burst the door open.

"Saved!" he cried; "Claudio! Claudio! we are saved."

He rushed back to the prostrate Claudio, and with many incoherent expressions of delight, he raised him in his arms, and with a strength which

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was the consequence of the excitement of the moment, he carried him to the open door.

A delicious, cool air blew into the vault from it, and Claudio opened his eyes.

"We are saved!" cried Maurice. "Oh, Claudio, rouse yourself we are indeed saved we are saved!"

A faint smile played upon Claudio�s cheek, and as the fresh air blew across his brow, he seemed momentarily to be recovering strength.

Supporting Claudio, Maurice now passed through the door-way, and assisted him to ascend a narrow flight of steps.

When they had arrived at the top, they perceived a streak of light issuing from above. It was very faint, but it was light, and Maurice breathed a fervent prayer of thanksgiving for the sight.

The roof was not a foot above his head. He pressed it with his hand, and displaced a trap-door with some difficulty.

In an instant he sprung through, and assisting Claudio, they both stood in the very passage from the floor of which they had escaped the castle, and discovered the iron ring in the stone.

"God be thanked!" cried Maurice, "we are safe at last."

They soon ascended to the turret, from whence they heard the voice of the baron, speaking in an angry tone to Caroline, and Claudio, whose anxiety for the safety of one who had become so dear to him, overcame every other consideration, would not be stayed by Maurice, but, weak and faint as he was, descended the turret stairs, and presented himself to the eyes of the baron in the manner we have recorded.

CHAPTER XIX.

If Caroline Mecklenburgh could before have entertained the slightest doubt with regard to the nature of her feelings for Claudio, that doubt was at once resolved by the pang of anguish which shot through her heart like a bolt of fire, upon seeing the state of debility to which he was reduced by his long sufferings in the dreary vaults of Zindorf.

While Maurice assisted the exhausted Claudio to the turret, Caroline busied herself in following with as much of the contents of the breakfast-tray as she could possibly carry at once in her hands.

"Do not say a word," she cried, observing that the partially recovered Claudio was about to speak "recruit your strength, and reserve the recital of all you have seen and suffered until you are restored to strength."

"Oh, Caroline," said Claudio, faintly, in spite of her remonstrances and injunctions, "like a sweet ministering angel you come "

Caroline shook her head and smiled as she replied, "Claudio, I will

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return shortly. You cannot speak to me when I am not here; you must recruit exhausted nature."

So saying, she tripped with a happier heart than she had possessed for many hours down the turret stairs to her own chamber.

Caroline Mecklenburgh felt that she was punishing herself by flying from the presence of Claudio; but she felt the necessity of leaving him fully at liberty to take that refreshment to which he had so many hours been a stranger.

Her curiosity was strongly excited to know the particulars of his adventures and discoveries in the vaults; but all feelings whatever were subservient to that which prompted her to consider the health and safety of Claudio as of paramount importance, and as dearer to her than any other things in the world.

With Claudio once more in safety, and in the turret, she dismissed one half of her anxieties and fears, and the boasted power of the Baron Zindorf and Count Durlack, appeared to shrink into nothing now that she was within such close proximity to the only being on the wide earth that she would wish to be her protector from the evil machinations of those who sought her destruction.

In about a quarter of an hour, she again ascended the turret stairs, and knocked quietly and timidly at the door of the chamber.

It was opened immediately by Claudio, who, seizing her hand, pressed it respectfully to his lips. "My preserver," he said, "it was the thought of thee that moved me to exertion through the many hours of agony that Maurice and I have passed, until exhausted nature overcame the mind, and but for him I must have perished unknown and "

"And not unlamented though," said Caroline, the tears gathering in her eyes, and then a blush suffusing her cheeks at her own boldness.

"To be lamented by the loveliest and best of thy sex," cried Claudio, passionately, "indeed renders existence a rich possession which is well worth the preserving."

"You could not suppose," said Caroline, looking down, "that I should view with indifference the fate of one who who "

"Oh, say on," cried Claudio; "let me not lose one accent from those dear lips."

Caroline was silent, for she felt that if she suffered her heart to complete the sentence, she would have said that which her sensitive mind shrunk from so openly and candidly avowing.

"Let me in the inmost recesses of my own heart," continued Claudio, "please myself, and lend a charm to my life by translating thy sweet maidenly confusion."

"Oh, spare me," cried Caroline, "forbear, Claudio, forbear, we are beset by dangers."

"Aye," he cried, "we are dear Caroline; but, in the midst of all these dangers, even were they ten times more numerous than they are, the sweet

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tender plant of pure affection may rise its hallowed head and blossom into beauty."

"Oh, Claudio, Claudio," said Caroline, "this is no time for for "

"For love, you would say," interrupted Claudio. "Yes, dearest, it is a time for love. All times are alike to that heavenly passion; that last cherished remnant of our divine origin; love, Caroline, makes its own times and its own seasons."

"Oh, hush! hush!" said Caroline, "we may be even now surrounded by snares spread for our destruction."

"Yet hear me for a moment," he continued, and each word that he spoke fell like a drop of precious heavenly balm upon the heart of Caroline Mecklenburgh. "It is dearest when danger hovers over us, and the horizon of our fate is darkened by clouds that we know what true love is. Then only is the pure heart tested, and it is not such seasons that the dear bonds of mutual affection are drawn closer between heart and heart, and mutual esteem begets the stronger passion of love."

There was a tenderness, a pathos in the tones of Claudio�s voice, which was music to the innocent heart of Caroline. His earnest and impassioned gaze contrasted with the paleness of his cheeks from his recent sufferings imparted to Caroline�s mind an irresistible eloquence to his words. What an alchemist is love. Everything in its pure crucible is converted to the pure dazzling one of heartfelt affection and beauty.

"You have not told me," said Caroline, after a pause, "the cause of your long absence from the turret."

"That absence," said Claudio, "long as it was, at one time seemed but the prelude to an eternal one."

"Gracious heavens!" cried Caroline; "what fearful dangers did you encounter?"

"The most fearful of all," replied Claudio, "for they were dangers which no skill or courage could cope with. But for Maurice, I must have died in the dungeons of Zindorf Castle, without hope."

"Oh, Claudio," said Maurice, "you saved me from destruction."

"Tell me," cried Caroline, "how all this came to pass? I had fondly hoped that there were no dangers beyond damp and darkness to be encountered in the vaults."

"Oh, Caroline," said Claudio, "may heaven ever preserve you from encountering the sights and sounds we have met with, beneath this ancient castle. They are enough to freeze the soul with horror."

Claudio then briefly related to the shuddering Caroline all that he and Maurice had gone through in the vaults. When he came to the finding of the skeleton, Caroline was strongly interested, in spite of her horror, and she said, in faltering accents, "Was the head wanting?"

"The head?" exclaimed Claudio. "No, Caroline. The skeleton was perfect."

"Thank Heaven," said Caroline, for she was fearful that it was the

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skeleton of the unhappy murdered Vileroy, which Claudio had encountered.

"If," said Claudio, at the conclusion of his narration, "I came in time to save you, dear Caroline, from one harsh word of that bad man, the Baron of Zindorf, I am more than compensated for all my sufferings and anxieties."

"Oh," cried Caroline, "do you imagine, that for an instant I could put any harshness of the baron�s towards myself in competition with your life?"

"I know you to be everything that is generous and noble," said Claudio. "But tell me, dear Caroline, why did you ask me if the skeleton was mutilated or not?"

"Another time," said Caroline, sadly, "I will tell you all. Not now, Claudio oh, not now."

"And why," continued Claudio, "did the baron betray so much alarm at the sight of me when I showed myself at the panel?"

Caroline shuddered, but said nothing; too well she guessed that the likeness between Claudio and his murdered brother, Vileroy, aided most probably by the unusual paleness of his face, had produced the effect upon the guilty imagination of the baron, but he shrunk from a communication which she felt would plunge the young and sanguine Claudio into grief unutterable.

"This mansion," said Claudio, with a sigh, as he marked Caroline�s unwillingness to answer him, "is full of mysteries."

"Do not oh, do not ask me, Claudio," said Caroline, "for answers, at present, to questions which which "

"Oh, say no more," cried Claudio; "I have been too ungrateful for all that you have already done for me to ask you to say that which you feel a repugnance to. Forgive me, Caroline, forgive me for being so importunate."

"You will soon know all, Claudio," said Caroline, with a deep sigh.

"And with that knowledge, let me but know," replied Claudio, "that in your heart the poor Claudio holds a place; and let the knowledge be fraught with what evil it may, Heaven will lend me fortitude to bear it."

"Did you find," said Caroline, wishing to change the subject of discourse; "did you find no passage similar to the one I described to you as leading to the dungeon of the aged man I spoke of?"

"No," replied Claudio; "I saw no place answering the description. I fear the prisoner you speak of, must have paid the debt of nature, for even youth and health, and strength, would soon decay and wither in the gloomy dungeon of this abode of tyranny, oppression, and crime."

"Alas!" said Caroline, "my own fears prompt me to the same conclusion, yet, is it not horrible to think that such a one may be still pining in hopeless misery beneath this castle, one to whom each minute will appear an hour of suffering?"

"It is indeed it is," replied Claudio, "and to save one moment of such

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misery, I would again tempt every danger that could assail me in the vaults of Zindorf."

"You are noble and generous," said Caroline. "But you must recover first from your late exertions."

"Oh, name them not," cried Claudio, "I believe that heaven has brought me here to get tidings of my long lost brother�s fate, which my heart tells me has been dark and unhappy, and perchance I am selected to be the means of restoring to freedom the aged man you mention."

"Heaven grant you may," said Caroline.

"Is there no alleviation," said Claudio, "of your imprisonment?"

"None," cried Caroline, shuddering, "and last night I was subjected to an intrusion from a man who "

"What?" cried Claudio "Intrusion?"

"Yes," said Caroline, her eyes filling with tears, "in the chamber opposite to that in which it is expected I should myself repose, lodges Count Durlack, the murderer of my poor parents."

"Count Durlack!" repeated Claudio; "I have heard of the man."

"He comes here to persecute me with his addresses," continued Caroline, "and that is the reason that I am not permitted to leave the castle."

"The villain!" cried Claudio with emotion.

"He is, indeed," said Caroline, "a villain. To him and his vile arts both my parents owe years of suffering; and, finally, the destruction of their fortune and their lives."

"And yet," said Claudio, much moved, "this man, or, rather monster, dares look you in the face, and presume to address you in the language of of affection?"

"He does, and his detestable deceit is sanctioned by the baron."

"Heaven, I thank thee," cried Claudio, "for bringing me to this spot, if it be but to punish that bad man."

"Oh, Claudio," cried Caroline, alarmed at his vehemence, "do nothing rashly."

"You will suffer me to be your protector, Caroline?"

"As I trust in heaven, Claudio," said Caroline, "so I trust in thee."

"And may Heaven," he cried with enthusiasm, "desert me, if by word, deed, or look, I betray the confidence which you have reposed in me, and which I would not barter for kingdoms."

"Heaven knows how soon or how much I may need a protector," said Caroline, "but provide me one thing, Claudio."

"Anything, Caroline, so you take not from me the already cherished privilege of calling myself your friend and champion."

"It is that, let you hear what you may, or fancy what you may, during your stay here, you will take no steps to aid me, unless I call upon you so to do."

"I will promise," said Claudio.

"I know the natures," continued Caroline, "of both the bad men who