As they all stood together in the steward's house on the morning of
their visit, they formed a strange and touching group. The bowed figure
of the aged man whose life had been prolonged so far beyond the usual
term of man's existence, the strong form of the mariner, whose vigor was
unabated although near sixty, and the wasted figure and sharpened
features of his daughter, who though scarce more than past the threshold
of womanhood, was yet closer to the dread abyss of eternity than either.
The old steward looked wistfully after them as they passed out into the
wintry air.

Hunter's passion for drink, his remorse for the officer's death, his
burning thirst for vengeance, and his own sense of self-abasement--all
conspired to add to the fever of his brain; and when Walter and his
daughter were admitted to his cell, it was a gibbering maniac that
rushed forward to meet them. Walter removed his fainting daughter from
the appalling spectacle, and returned with a sickening heart and
terrible forebodings. The shades of evening had given place to bright
moonlight ere they reached the castle. The driver used his utmost speed,
but the snow hindered their progress, and just as they arrived at the
castle gates, the horses swerved violently, and starting to the side of
the road, stood snorting with terror. Walter sprang out, and in the
momentary strength caused by the excitement, his daughter followed him.
The Earl with some companions rode up at the moment of seeing the
carriage stopped; but a more ghastly obstacle obstructed their path--for
there in the snow drift at the gates of the mansion where her seducer
lived in splendor, lay the corpse of the once fair, gentle, and
accomplished Ellen Hunter.

The Earl gazed upon the body of his victim for a moment, and even his
callous heart was touched. It was evanescent, however, for on one of his