anguish, as he was carried from the room. "She will share my fate. Oh
God! I am her destroyer!"

Cholmondeley, as soon as his master had been borne away, was seized by
the torturers and placed on the rack. He determined that not a sound
should escape him, and though his whole frame seemed rent asunder, he
bravely kept his resolve.

"Go on," cried Nightgall, as the torturers paused. "Turn the roller
again."

Even as he spoke Cholmondeley fainted, and, finding that no answers
could be extracted from him, he was taken back to his cell and flung
upon a heap of straw. As he lay there, Nightgall, with diabolical
cruelty, brought Cicely to his side, and bade her look on his nerveless
arms and crippled limbs, and mockingly offered to set him free if Cicely
would marry him of her own free will. When at Cuthbert's instigation she
refused, he forced her away, shrieking for help.

Cuthbert sank once more into insensibility. He came to his senses again
to find that men were chafing his limbs and bathing his temples, and
that Renard was in his cell. At the Spaniard's order he was given a cup
of wine, and the rest having withdrawn, Renard questioned him further.

While this examination was going on the cell door opened softly, and a
masked figure appeared. It was Nightgall, who, bribed by De Noailles,
had come to assassinate Renard. He flung himself on his intended victim,
and was about to dispatch him with his poniard, when Cuthbert, summoning
up all his strength, intervened.