And so it fell out.
I heard the chapel bell begin to toll ere long, and pictured in my mind the sisters and their wards crossing devoutly from the convent garden to the little chapel in the wood.

No doubt the sleek Peter would be there to eye them as they glided in; and when the service was done, perchance, he would seek to make his wicked swoop on that poor, unsuspecting lamb, and carry her off to his foul paymaster.

In an hour-- What was that?
I suddenly heard close to me staggering footsteps and a stifled groan, accompanied by the hard panting of a man who laboured with a heavy load.

That they were coming my way was evident by the crackling of the underwood and the impatience of the horse.

What a year did those two minutes seem as I waited there, sword in hand! Then there broke into the covert a man, dragging on his arm the fainting form of her whom, though I had not seen her for a long year, I knew in a moment to be Rose O'Neill, my master Ludar's maiden.