time."

The younger man did so. For a few moments the massive door resisted.
Then, suddenly, something gave way with a loud snap--it was a part of
the lock,--and the door at once swung wide open.

How true it is that we measure time by the events which happen within a
given space of it, rather than by its actual duration.

To those who were engaged in forcing open the door of the antique
chamber, where slept the young girl whom they named Flora, each moment
was swelled into an hour of agony; but, in reality, from the first
moment of the alarm to that when the loud cracking noise heralded the
destruction of the fastenings of the door, there had elapsed but very
few minutes indeed.

"It opens--it opens," cried the young man.

"Another moment," said the stranger, as he still plied the
crowbar--"another moment, and we shall have free ingress to the chamber.
Be patient."

This stranger's name was Marchdale; and even as he spoke, he succeeded
in throwing the massive door wide open, and clearing the passage to the
chamber.

To rush in with a light in his hand was the work of a moment to the
young man named Henry; but the very rapid progress he made into the
apartment prevented him from observing accurately what it contained, for
the wind that came in from the open window caught the flame of the