was seized with temporary insanity, during which the wretch who had been her destruction, left her to her fate, merely enclosing some money in a letter, which he gave to the care of the people of the inn, in which they had been staying. He also paid them to take charge of her until she recovered. The good hostess was more compassionate than her deceiver. She tended her until her reason returned, which, alas, was restored but too soon, When she received the letter, which contained protestations of affection, more insulting to her than the harshest reproaches could have been, she tore it in pieces, and gave the money it contained to the worthy people of the inn. During the night she wandered away, she scarcely knew whither; but far from her own home. She found herself in the morning amongst some unfrequented paths in the mountains. She suddenly met a young man, by the name of Giulio, who, in her extreme youth, had been her lover, but who had been unfor

tunate in life, and had joined the banditti that infested the mountains. Although he had forgotten his old tenderness in the bandit's course, he had not lost all kindly feeling, and when he saw the object of his first-love, alone, and evidently in extreme misery, he did his best to console her. He, like herself, had met with disappointments, and to him she could confide her sorrows, as to a kindred spirit. He listened to the tale of her wrongs with indignation, and told her that he would help her to avenge them, if she would go with him. Careless of what became of her, she followed him to the haunts of the banditti, after he had sworn to protect her from insult and injury. Her own wild and passionate manner; the frenzy of her gestures, and the mad fire of her eyes, were her best protection; but Giulio gave his comrades to understand that she was his wife, and that she was unhappily insane. He told them, also, that she was an inveterate foe of the English, and might serve them in case

they should have any chance dealings with individuals of that race. Giulio placed Margarita in the cave to which the reader has been already introduced, and whither the bandits rarely came. He provided for her wants, and promised that she should have the care of the first English prisoner. She brooded over her wrongs, until she again became nearly mad. She passed her days in wandering about the mountains, but cared not to escape from her place of refuge. There was something in the wild life of the bandits, and their recklessness, that pleased her, and seemed to awaken sympathy in her own passionate heart. Over and over again she described Mordaunt to Giulio, and told him that she was sure he was still in Italy, in the vague hope of having him in her power, and of plunging the dagger she kept concealed in her bosom, into his faithless heart.

Such were the feelings she nourished, when Herbert Llewellen was confided wholly to her care, and the bandits knew

B 5

that he could have no more cruel keeper. When he was brought to her cave, he was in the last stage of weakness; truly next door to death. He had been, for some time previously, merely kept alive by means of oranges and dried fruit, and, as he has himself already related to the stranger, reserved for vengeance. When Margarita saw him laid upon the wretched bed in the corner of the cave, with a fetter round his wrist, and no power of motion, or sign of consciousness, she rejoiced with the joy of a savage, at the sight of a conquered foe. She was left alone with her prisoner, and her first thought was how she could best wreak upon him the vengeance she had so long reserved for his countryman. She looked at him again. He was emaciated, insensible, and helpless as an infant. Her hand held the hilt of the ever-ready dagger; her grasp relaxed, and she did not draw it forth. She had never before seen any fellow creature reduced to such a condition. In spite of the demon that

possessed her heart, she was still a woman, and a faint emotion of pity showed that the Divine spark of feeling was not yet extinguished in her breast. She procured wine and water, and wetted the parched lips. When the eyes unclosed for a moment, and looked at her with the melancholy gaze of delirium, a tear, the first she had shed since Mordaunt left her, fell upon the bloodless cheek of her imaginary enemy. The woman's heart returned, and she felt that she had no power to injure one so dependent. She laid aside her revenge for the time, and sought to revive the miserable being that mutely called upon her for aid. Was it, she asked herself, pity or cruelty, that moved her to call him back to a life of misery? She tried every restorative within her reach, and her efforts at last succeeded in bringing a slight pulsation to the heart. She persevered, and the lips moved and the eyes again unclosed. It was long, very long-many a weary hour-before