and as we advanced whence the sounds issued, we indistinctly perceived figures bearing off a lady with violence. Springing forward, my friend pursued one, who escaped his vigilance, while the other was wounded by his own pistol."
Looking to Rosilia, with an expression at once agitated, inquisitive, and penetrating, he added, addressing the General, "Your daughter can better explain who it was that dared to offer her such violence."
Rosilia gaining strength to speak, and finding it necessary to do so from the appeal just made to her, replied,
"It was he whom I told you I had seen, my dear mother," said she.
"Melliphant!" exclaimed Mrs. De Brooke; "I felt assured it was he; but how came you in his power?"
"Scoundrel! villain!" burst forth the General; "how came it that he succeeded in making this insolent assault upon you?"
"Compose yourself, my dear father," replied Rosilia, with emotion; "my story is short, and can be told in a few words. In the first place, you must know that I have not been off these grounds, however remote you may have supposed me from you; I was concealed where it might well be beyond your possibility to conjecture—within the vault of which Mrs. Boville spoke.
