The woman took from among the folds of her dress, a small writing-case of satin wood, formed like a scroll. Touching a spring, she opened it, took out implements for writing, and some note-paper, which emitted a faint and very peculiar perfume, as she began to write. After tracing a few hasty lines, she folded the paper, placed it carefully in an envelope, and proceeded to seal it. Taking from her pocket a singular little taper box of gold, covered with antique chasing, she lighted one of the tapers, and dropped a globule of green wax upon her note, which she carefully impressed with a tiny seal taken from another compartment of the taper box.

Agnes watched all this dainty preparation with a look of half-sarcastic surprise. When the note was placed in her hand, she examined the address and the seal with parted lips, as if she would have smiled, but for a feeling of profound astonishment.

"To General Harrington. The seal a cupid writing on a tablet. Well, what am I to do with this?"

"Leave it upon General Harrington's library-table after breakfast, to-morrow morning—that is all."

The woman arose, folded up her writing case, and gathering the voluminous folds of her shawl from the moss, where it had been allowed to trail, turned away. Agnes watched her as she disappeared through the forest trees with a rapid step, fluttering out her shawl now and then, like the wings of some great tropical bird.

"I wonder who she really is, and what she would be at?" muttered the girl. "Do all girls distrust so much? Now, this note—shall I read it, and learn what mystery links her with the family up yonder? Why not? It is but following out her own lessons, so it be done adroitly."

Agnes placed her finger carefully upon the envelope, and with a steady pressure, forced it from under the wax.

"Ha! neatly done!" she exclaimed, taking out the enclosed, and unfolding it with hands that shook, spite of herself, "and a fool for my pains, truly. I might have known she would baffle me—written in cypher, even to the name. Well, one thing is certain, that my witch and old General Harrington understand each other, that is something gained. If I had but time, now, to make out these characters, and—and"—

She broke off almost with a shriek, for a hand was reached over her shoulder, and the note taken suddenly from her grasp, while she stood cowering beneath the discovery of her meanness. The woman whom she had supposed on the other side the hill, stood smiling quietly upon her. Not a word was spoken. The woman took out her taper box, dropped some fresh wax beneath the seal, and smiling all the time, handed the note back again.

Agnes turned her face, now swarthy with shame, aside from that smiling look, and began to plunge her little foot down angrily into the moss, biting her lips till the blood came. At last, she lifted her head with a toss, and turning her black eyes boldly on the woman, said, in a voice of half-tormenting defiance, "Very well, what if I did open it? My first lesson was, when you and I read Mrs. Harrington's letter. If that was right, this is, also."

"Who complained? Who, in fact, cares?" was the terse answer, "only it was badly done. The next time you break a seal, be sure and have wax of exactly the same tint on hand. I thought of that, and came back. It would ruin all, if General Harrington saw his letters tampered with."

"You are a strange woman!" said Agnes, shaking off the weight of shame that oppressed her, and preparing to go.

"And you, a strange girl. Now go home, and leave the note as I directed. In a day or two we shall meet again. Almost any time, at nightfall you will find me here. Good night!"

"Good night," said Agnes, sullenly, "I will obey you this once, but remember my reward."

Again the two parted, and each went on her separate path of evil—the one lost in shadows, the other bathed in the light of a warm sunset.

It did not strike the woman, as she toiled upward to her solitary dwelling, that she was training a viper which would in the end turn and sting her own bosom. Her evil purposes required instruments, and without hesitation, she had gathered them out of her own life. But, even now, she found them difficult to wield, and hard to control. What they might prove in the future remained for proof.