When she entered her eyes were mimediately directed to the skreen, but no Ferdinando was there. She opened not her mouth during the service, she was unconscious of what was passing about her; her hopes of escaping from a life so odious to her now began to decrease, and as that tranquillizer of the bosoms of the unhappy fled, despair and horror filled the dreary void.

The coming night she again visited the chapel; she stood listening to the melancholy tones of the clock as it proclaimed the departing hours; but no other sounds broke on the silence that reigned in undisturbed horror in the gloomy and extensive chapel of the

monas

monastery and convent of Santa Catherina. All hopes of Ferdinando's coming now entirely deserted her, and she formed the dangerous resolution of endeavouring to find out the way by which he had entered the monastery, determined to make her escape by it.

Entering the aisle she proceeded to the portals; which having cautiously opened, she lightly trod the marble pavement of the lofty corridore, almost afraid, yet urged to proceed by her new-born hopes of escape. She advanced nearly to the extremity of the passage, examining the several doors which were on each side of it, but did not dare to open

them

them, lest they should belong to the chambers of the monks.

At the extremity of the corridore which opened into a large hall rose a magnificent flight of stairs which communicated with a large gallery that was raised round it. As she was going to enter the hall Agatha suddenly stopped, and then hastily retreated, for she plainly heard several footsteps in the gallery above, and a light flashed on the sides of the hall; terrified at this, and finding the paces increasing and the sounds of several voices above, she flew with dreadful aprehension of being discovered toward the chapel, and as she was proceeding down the aisle the grand bell of

the

the convent began to toll. Agatha's trembling hands could hardly lock the gate, and scarcely had she entered her chamber when she heard the steps of the nuns, who, alarmed at the unusual tolling of the bell, were hastening to the chapel whither it warned them.

WHEN the first beams of the morning shot over the eastern mountains the Marchese de Carlentini arose, and, attended by the steward of the Castello and two domestics, proceeded toward the South Angle Tower.

Crossing the grass-grown court-yard that led to that wing, the portals of the South Hall being thrown open, disclosed

a struc