her craft, her intellect, returned. With a glance, she comprehended the
terrible danger that awaited her. Before he was aware of her movement,
she was at his side; her hand on his own, her voice in his ear.

"Stir not a step, utter not a sound, or you are--"

Beck did not suffer her to proceed. With the violence rather of fear
than of courage, he struck her to the ground; but she clung to him still,
and though rendered for the moment speechless by the suddenness of the
blow, her eyes took an expression of unspeakable cruelty and fierceness.
He struggled with all his might to shake her off; as he did so, she
placed feebly her other hand upon the wrist of the lifted arm that had
smitten her, and he felt a sharp pain, as if the nails had fastened into
the flesh. This but exasperated him to new efforts. He extricated
himself from her grasp, which relaxed as her lips writhed into a smile of
scorn and triumph, and, spurning her while she lay before the threshold,
he opened the door, sprang forward, and escaped. No thought had he of
tarrying in that House of Pelops, those human shambles, of denouncing
Murder in its lair; to fly to reach his master, warn, and shield him,--
that was the sole thought which crossed his confused, bewildered brain.

It might be from four to five minutes that Lucretia, half-stunned, half-
senseless, lay upon those floors,--for besides the violence of her fall,
the shock of the struggle upon nerves weakened by the agony of
apprehension, occasioned by the imminent and unforeseen chance of
detection, paralyzed her wondrous vigour of mind and frame,--when Varney
entered.

"They tell me she sleeps," he said, in hoarse, muttered accents, before
he saw the prostrate form at his very feet. But Varney's step, Varney's