wept at another channel for so much natural tenderness. It was half
the woman gaining a woman-friend, half the child clinging to a new
playmate.

"Ah, Sibyll," she whispered, "do not leave me to-night; this strange
place daunts me, and the figures on the arras seem so tall and
spectre-like, and they say the old tower is haunted. Stay, dear
Sibyll!"

And Sibyll stayed.




CHAPTER II.

THE SLEEPING INNOCENCE--THE WAKEFUL CRIME.

While these charming girls thus innocently conferred; while, Anne's
sweet voice running on in her artless fancies, they helped each other
to undress; while hand in hand they knelt in prayer by the crucifix in
the dim recess; while timidly they extinguished the light, and stole
to rest; while, conversing in whispers, growing gradually more faint
and low, they sank into guileless sleep,--the unholy king paced his
solitary chamber, parched with the fever of the sudden and frantic
passion that swept away from a heart in which every impulse was a
giant all the memories of honour, gratitude, and law.

The mechanism of this strong man's nature was that almost unknown to
the modern time; it belonged to those earlier days which furnish to