The illness of Miss Thusa was very sudden. She had risen in the morning in usual health, and pursued until noon her customary occupation—when, all at once, as she told the young doctor, "it seemed as if a knife went through her heart, and a wedge into her brain—and she was sure it was a death-stroke." For the first time, in the course of her long life, she was obliged to take her bed, and there she lay in helplessness and loneliness, unable to summon relief. The young doctor called in the afternoon as a friend, and found his services imperatively required as a physician. The only wish she expressed was to have Helen with her, and as soon as he had relieved the sufferings of his patient, Arthur brought Helen to the Hermitage. When she arrived, Miss Thusa was under the influence of an opiate, but opening her heavy eyes, a ray of light emanated from the dim, gray orbs, as Helen, pale and awe-struck, approached her bedside. She was appalled at seeing that powerful frame so suddenly prostrated—she was shocked at the change a few hours had wrought in those rough, but commanding features. The large eye-balls looked sunken, and darkly shaded below, while a wan, gray tint, melting off into a bluish white on the temples, was spread over the face.

"You will stay with me to-night, my child," said she, in a voice strangely altered. "I've got something to tell you—and the time is come."

"Yes. I will stay with you as long as you wish, Miss Thusa," replied Helen, passing her hand softly over the hoary looks that shaded the brow of the sufferer. "I will nurse you so tenderly, that you will soon be well again."

"Good child—blessed child!" murmured she, closing her eyes beneath the slumberous weight of the anodyne, and sinking into a deep sleep.

And now Helen sat alone, watching the aged friend, whose strongly-marked and peculiar character had had so great an influence on her own. For awhile the echo of Arthur's parting words made so much music in her ear, it drowned the harsh, solemn ticking of the old clock, and stole like a sweet lullaby over her spirit. But gradually the ticking sounded louder and louder, and her loneliness pressed heavily upon her. There was a little, dark, walnut table, standing on three curiously wrought legs, in a corner of the room. On this a large Bible, covered with dark, linen cloth, was laid, and on the top of this Miss Thusa's spectacles, with the bows crossing each other, like the stiffened arms of a corpse. Helen could not bear to look upon those spectacles, which had always seemed to her an inseparable part of Miss Thusa, lying so still and melancholy there. She took them up reverently, and laid them on a shelf, then drawing the table near the fire, or rather carrying it, so as not to awaken the sleeper, she opened the sacred book. The first words which happened to meet her eye, were—

"Where is God, my Maker, who giveth me songs in the night?"

The pious heart of the young girl thrilled as she read this beautiful and appropriate text.

"Surely, oh God, Thou art here," was the unspoken language of that young, believing heart, "here in this lonely cottage, here by this bed of sickness, and here also in this trembling, fearing, yet trusting spirit. In every life-beat throbbing in my veins, Thy awful steps I hear. Yet Thou canst not come, Thou canst not go, for Thou art ever near, unseen, yet felt, an all pervading, glorious presence."

Had any one seen Helen, seated by that solitary hearth, with her hands clasped over those holy pages, her mild, devotional eyes raised to Heaven, the light quivering in a halo round her brow, they might have imagined her a young Saint, or a young Sister of Charity, ministering to the sufferings of that world whose pleasures she had abjured.

A low knock was heard at the door. It must be the young doctor, for who else would call at such an hour? Yet Helen hesitated and trembled, holding her breath to listen, thinking it possible it was but the pressure of the wind, or some rat tramping within the walls. But when the knock was repeated, with a little more emphasis, she took the lamp, entered the narrow passage, closing the door softly after her, removed the massy bar, certain of beholding the countenance which was the sunlight of her soul. What was her astonishment and terror, on seeing instead the never-to-be-forgotten face and form of Bryant Clinton. Had she seen one of those awful figures which Miss Thusa used to describe, she would scarcely have been more appalled than by the unexpected sight of this transcendently handsome young man.

"Is terror the only emotion I can inspire—after so long an absence, too?" he asked, seizing her hand in both his, and riveting upon her his wonderfully expressive, dark blue eyes. "Forgive me if I have alarmed you, but forbidden your father's house, and knowing your presence here, I have dared to come hither that I might see you one moment before I leave these regions, perhaps forever."

"Impossible, Mr. Clinton," cried Helen, recovering, in some measure, from her consternation, though her color came and went like the beacon's revolving flame. "I cannot see you at this unseasonable hour. There is a sick, a very sick person in the nest room with whom I am watching. I cannot ask you to come in. Besides," she added, with a dignity that enchanted the bold intruder, "if I cannot see you in my father's house, it is not proper that I see you at all." She drew back quickly, uttering a hasty "Good-night," and was about to close the door, when Clinton glided in, shutting the door after him.

"You must hear me, Helen," said he, in that sweet, low voice, peculiar to himself. "Had it not been for you I should never have returned. I told you once that I loved you, but if I loved you then I must adore you now. You are ten thousand times more lovely. Helen, you do not know how charming, how beautiful you are. You do not know the enthusiastic devotion, the deathless passion you have inspired."

"I cannot conceive of such depths of falsehood," exclaimed Helen, her timid eyes kindling with indignation; "all this have you said to Mittie, and far more, and she, mistaken girl, believes you true."

"I deceived myself, alas!" cried he, in a tone of bitter sorrow. "I thought I loved her, for I had not yet seen and known her gentler, lovelier sister. Forgive me, Helen—love is not the growth of our will. 'Tis a flower that springs spontaneously in the human heart, of celestial fragrance, and destined to immortal bloom."

"If I thought you really loved me," said Helen, in a softened tone, shrinking from the fascination of his glance, and the sorcery of his voice, "I should feel great and exceeding sorrow—for it would be in vain. But the love that I have imagined is of a very different nature. Slowly kindled, it burns with steady and unceasing glory, unchanging as the sun, and eternal as the soul."

Helen paused with a burning flush, fearful that she had revealed the one secret of her heart so lately revealed to herself, and Clinton resumed his passionate declarations.

"If you will not go," said she, all her terror returning at the vehemence of his suit, "if you will not go," looking wildly at the door that separated her from the sick room, "I will leave you here. You dare not follow me. The destroying angel guards this threshold."

In her excitement she knew not what she uttered. The words came unbidden from her lips. She laid her hand on the latch, but Clinton caught hold of it ere she had time to lift it.

"You shall not leave me, by heaven, you shall not, till you have answered one question. Is it for the cold, calculating Arthur Hazleton you reject such love as mine?"

Instead of uttering an indignant denial to this sudden and vehement interrogation, Helen trembled and turned pale. Her natural timidity and sensitiveness returned with overpowering influence; and added to these, a keen sense of shame at being accused of an unsolicited attachment, a charge she could not with truth repel, humbled and oppressed her.

"A murderous guilt shows not itself more soon Than love that would seem hid."

So thought Helen, while shrinking from the glance that gleamed upon her, like blue steel flashing in the sunbeams. Yes! Arthur Hazleton was cold compared to Clinton. He loved her even as he did Alice, with a calm, brotherly affection, and that was all. He had never praised her beauty or attractions—never offered the slightest incense to her vanity or pride. Sometimes he had uttered indirect expressions, which had made her bosom throb wildly with hope, but humility soon chastened the emotion which delicacy taught her to conceal. Cold indeed sounded the warmest phrase he had ever addressed her, "God bless you, dear, good, brave Helen," to Clinton's romantic and impassioned language, though, when it fell from his lips, it passed with such melting warmth into her heart. Swift as a swallow's flight these thoughts darted through Helen's mind, and gave an indecision and embarrassment to her manner, which emboldened Clinton with hopes of success. All at once her countenance changed. The strangeness of her situation, the lateness of the hour, the impropriety of receiving such a visitor in that little dark, narrow passage—the dread of Arthur's coming in, and finding her alone with her dreaded though splendid companion—the fear that Miss Thusa might waken and require her assistance—the vision of her father's displeasure and Mittie's jealous wrath—all swept in a stormy gust before her, driving away every consideration but one—the desire for escape, and the determination to effect it. The apprehension of awaking Miss Thusa, by rushing into her room, died in the grasp of a greater terror.

"Let me go," she exclaimed, wrenching her hand from his tightening hold. "Let me go. You madden me."

In her haste to open the door the latch rattled, and the door swung to with a violence that called forth a groan from the awakening sleeper. Turning the wooden button that fastened it on the inside, she sunk down into the first seat in her reach, and a dark shadow, flecked with sparks of fire, floated before her eyes. Chill and dizzy, she thought she was going to faint, when her name, pronounced distinctly by Miss Thusa, recalled her bewildered senses. She rose, and it seemed as if the bed came to her, for she was not conscious of walking to it, but she found herself bending over the patient and looking steadfastly into her clouded eyes.

"Helen, my dear," said she, "I feel a great deal better. I must have slept a long time. Have I not? Give me a little water. There, now sit down close by my bed and listen. If that knife cuts my breath again, I shall have to give up talking. Just raise my head a little, and hand me my spectacles off the big Bible. I can't talk without them. But how dim the glasses are. Wipe them for me, child. There's dust settled on them."

Helen took the glasses and wiped them with her soft linen handkerchief, but she sighed as she did so, well knowing that it was the eyes that were growing dim instead of the crystal that covered them.

"A little better—a little better," said the spinster, looking wistfully towards the candle. "Now, Helen, my dear, just step into the other room and bring here my wheel. It is heavy, but not beyond your strength. I always bring it in here at night, but I can't do it now. I was taken sick so sudden, I forgot it. It's my stay-by and stand-by—you know."

Helen looked so startled and wild, that Miss Thusa imagined her struck with superstitious terror at the thought of going alone into another room.

"I'm sorry to see you've not outgrown your weaknesses," said she. "It's my fault, I'm afraid, but I hope the Lord will forgive me for it."

Helen was not afraid of the lonely room, so near and so lately occupied, but she was afraid of encountering Clinton, who might be lingering by the open door. But Miss Thusa's request, sick and helpless as she was, had the authority of a command, and she rose to obey her. She barred the outer door without catching the gleam of Clinton's dark, shining hair, and having brought the wheel, with panting breath, for it was indeed very heavy, sat down with a feeling of security and relief, since the enemy was now shut out by double barriers. One window was partly raised to admit the air to Miss Thusa's oppressed lungs, but they were both fastened above.

"You had better not exert yourself, Miss Thusa," said Helen, after giving her the medicine which the doctor had prescribed. "You are not strong enough to talk much now."

"I shall never be stronger, my child. My day is almost spent, and the night cometh, wherein no man can work. I always thought I should have a sudden call, and when I was struck with that sharp pain, I knew my Master was knocking at the door. The Lord be praised, I don't want to bar him out. I'm ready and willing to go, willing to close my long and lonely life. I have had few to love, and few to care for me, but, thank God, the one I love best of all does not forsake me in my last hour. Helen, darling, God bless you—God bless you, my blessed child."

The voice of the aged spinster faltered, and tear after tear trickled like wintry rain down her furrowed cheeks. All the affections of a naturally warm and generous heart lingered round the young girl, who was still to her the little child whom she had cradled in her arms, and hushed into the stillness of awe by her ghostly legends. Helen, inexpressibly affected, leaned her head on Miss Thusa's pillow, and wept and sobbed audibly. She did not know, till this moment, how strong and deep-rooted was her attachment for this singular and isolated being. There was an individuality, a grandeur in her character, to which Helen's timid, upward-looking spirit paid spontaneous homage. The wild sweep of her imagination, always kept within the limits of the purest morality, her stern sense of justice, tempered by sympathy and compassion, and the tenderness and sensibility that so often softened her harsh and severe lineaments, commanded her respect and admiration. Even her person, which was generally deemed ungainly and unattractive, was invested with majesty and a certain grace in Helen's partial eyes. She was old—but hers was the sublimity of age without its infirmity, the hoariness of winter without its chillness. It seemed impossible to associate with her the idea of dissolution. Yet there she lay, helpless as an infant, with no more strength to resist the Almighty's will, than a feather to hurl back the force of the whirlwind.

"You see that wheel, Helen," said she, recovering her usual calmness—"I told you that I should bequeath it, as a legacy, to you. Don't despise the homely gift. You see those brass bands, with grooves in them—just screw them to the right as hard as you can—a little harder."

Helen screwed and twisted till her slender wrists ached, when the brass suddenly parted, and a number of gold pieces rolled upon the floor.

"Pick them up, and put them back," said Miss Thusa, "and screw it up again—all the joints will open in that way. The wood is hollowed out and filled with gold, which I bequeath to you. My will is in there, too, made by the lawyers where I found the money. You remember when that advertisement was put in the papers, and I went on that journey, part of the way with you. Well, I must tell you the shortest way, though it's a long story. It was written by a lady, on her death-bed, a widow lady, who had no children, and a large property of her own. You don't remember my brother, but your father does. He was a hater of the world, and almost made me one. Well, it seemed he had a cause for his misanthropy which I never knew of, for when he was a young man he went away from home, and we didn't hear from him for years. When he came back, he was sad and sickly, and wanted to get into some little quiet place, where nobody would molest him. Then it was we came to this little cabin, where he died, in this very room, and this very bed, too."

Miss Thusa paused, and the room and the bed seemed all at once clothed with supernatural solemnity, by the sad consecration of death. Death had been there—death was waiting there.

"Oh! Miss Thusa, you are faint and weary. Do stop and rest, I pray you," cried Helen, bathing her forehead with camphor, and holding a glass of water to her lips.

But the unnatural strength which opium gives, sustained her, and she continued her narrative.

"This lady, when young, had loved and been betrothed to my brother, and then forsook him for a wealthier man. It was that which ruined him, and I never knew it. He had one of those still natures, where the waters of sorrow lie deep as a well. They never overflow. She told me that she never had had one happy moment from the time she married, and that her conscience gnawed her for her broken faith. Her husband died, and left her a rich widow, without a child to leave her property to. After a while she fell sick of a long and lingering disease, for which there is no cure. Then she thought if she could leave her money to my brother, or he being dead, to some of his kin, she could die with more comfort. So, she put the advertisement in the paper, which you all saw. I didn't want the money, and wanted to come away without it, but she sent for a lawyer, and had it all fastened upon me by deeds and writings, whether I was willing or not. She didn't live but a few days after I got there. The lawyer was very kind, and assisted me in my plans, though he thought them very odd. There is no need of wasting my breath in telling how I had the money changed into gold, and the wheel fixed in the way you see it, after a fashion of my own. I would not have touched one cent of it, had it not been for you, and next to you, that poor boy, Louis. I didn't want any one to know it, and be dinning in my ears about money from morning to night. I had no use for it myself, for habits don't change when the winter of life is begun. There is no use for it in the dark grave to which I am hastening. There is no use for it near the great white throne of God, where I shall shortly stand. When I am dead and gone, Helen, take that wheel home, and give it a place wherever you are, for old Miss Thusa's sake. I really think—I'm a strange, foolish old woman—but I really think I should like to have its likeness painted on my coffin lid. A kind of coat-of-arms, you know, child."

Miss Thusa did not relate all this without pausing many times for breath, and when she concluded she closed her eyes, exhausted by the effort she had made. In a short time she again slept, and Helen sat pondering in mute amazement over the disclosure made by one whom she had imagined so very indigent. The gold weighed heavy on her mind. It did not seem real, so strangely acquired, so mysteriously concealed. It reminded her of the tales of the genii, more than of the actualities of every day life. She prayed that Miss Thusa might live and take care of it herself for long years to come.

Several times during the recital, she thought she heard a sound at the window, but when she turned her head to ascertain the cause, she saw nothing but the curtain slightly fluttering in the wind that crept in at the opening, with a soft, sighing sound.

It was the first time she had ever watched with the sick, and she found it a very solemn thing. Yet with all the solemnity and gloom brooding over her, she felt inexpressible gratitude that she was not haunted by the spectral illusions of her childhood. Reason was no longer the vassal, but the monarch of imagination, and though the latter often proved a restless and wayward subject, it acknowledged the former as its legitimate sovereign.

Miss Thusa, lying so rigid and immovable on her back, with her hands crossed on her breast, a white linen handkerchief folded over her head and fastened under the chin, looked so resembling death, that it was difficult to think of her as a living, breathing thing. Helen gazed upon her with indescribable awe, sometimes believing it was nothing but soulless clay before her, but even then she gazed without horror. Her exceeding terror of death was gone, without her being conscious of its departure. It was like the closing of a dark abyss—there was terra firma, where an awful chasm had been. There was more terror to her in the vitality burning in her own heart, than in that poor, enfeebled form. How strong were its pulsations! how loud they sounded in the midnight stillness!—louder than the death-watch that ticked by the hearth. To escape from the beatings of "this muffled drum" of life, she went to the window, and partly drawing aside the curtain, breathed on a pane of glass, so that the gauzy web the frost had woven might melt away and admit the vertical rays of the midnight moon. How beautiful, how resplendent was the scene that was spread out before her! She had not thought before of looking abroad, and it was the first time the solemn glories of the noon of night had unfolded to her view. In the morning a drizzling rain had fallen, which had frozen as it fell on the branches of the leafless trees, and now on every little twig hung pendant diamonds, glittering in the moonbeams. The ground was partially covered with snow, but where it lay bare, it was powdered with diamond dust. A silvery net-work was drawn over the windows, save one clear spot, which her melting breath had made. She looked up to the moon, shining so high, so lone on the pale azure of a wintry heaven, and felt an impulse to kneel down and worship it, as the loveliest, holiest image of the Creator's goodness and love. How tranquil, how serene, how soft, yet glorious it shone forth from the still depths of ether! What a divine melancholy it diffused over the sleeping earth! Helen felt as she often did when looking up into the eyes of Arthur Hazleton. So tranquil, so serene, yet so glorious were their beams to her, and so silently and holily did they sink into the soul.

In the morning the young doctor found his patient in the same feeble, slumberous state. There was no apparent change either for better or worse, and he thought it probable she might linger days and even weeks, gradually sinking, till she slept the last great sleep.

"You look weary and languid, Helen," said he, anxiously regarding the young watcher, "I hope nothing disturbed your lonely vigils. I endeavored to return, that I might relieve you, in some measure, of your fatiguing duty, but was detained the whole night."

Helen thought of the terror she had suffered from Clinton's intrusion, but she did not like to speak of it. Perhaps he had already left the neighborhood, and it seemed ungenerous and useless to betray him.

"I certainly had no ghostly visitors," said she, "and what is more, I did not fear them. All unreal phantasies fled before that sad reality," looking on the wan features of Miss Thusa.

"I see you have profited by the discipline of the last twelve hours," cried Arthur, "and it was most severe, for one of your temperament and early habits. I have heard it said," he added, thoughtfully, "that those who follow my profession, become callous and indifferent to human suffering—that their nerves are steeled, and their hearts indurated—but I do not find it the case with me; I never approach the bedside of the sick and the dying without deep and solemn emotion. I feel nearer the grave, nearer to Heaven and God."

"No—I am sure it cannot be said of you," said Helen, earnestly, "you are always kind and sympathizing—quick to relieve, and slow to inflict pain."

"Ah, Helen, you forget how cruel I was in forcing you back, where the deadly viper had been coiled; in making you take that dark, solitary walk in search of the sleeping Alice; and even last night I might have spared you your lonely night watch, if I would. Had I told you that you were too inexperienced and inefficient to be a good nurse, you would have believed me and yielded your place, or at least shared it with another. Do you still think me kind?"

"Most kind, even when most exacting," she replied. Whenever her feelings were excited, her deep feelings of joy as well as sorrow, Helen's eyes always glistened. This peculiarity gave a soft, pensive expression to her countenance that was indescribably winning, and made her smile from the effect of contrast enchantingly sweet.

The glistening eye and the enchanting smile that followed these words, or rather accompanied them, were not altogether lost on Arthur.

Mrs. Gleason came to relieve Helen from the care of nursing, and insisted upon her immediate return home. Helen obeyed with reluctance, claiming the privilege of resuming her watch again at night. She wanted to be with Miss Thusa in her last moments. She had a sublime curiosity to witness the last strife of body and soul, the separation of the visible and the invisible; but when night came on, exhausted nature sought renovation in the deepest slumbers that had ever wrapped her. Arthur, perceiving some change in his patient, resolved to remain with her himself, having hired a woman to act as subordinate nurse during Miss Thusa's sickness. She occupied the kitchen as bed-room—an apartment running directly back of the sick chamber.

Miss Thusa's strength was slowly, gently wasting. Disease had struck her at first like a sharp poignard, but life flowed away from the wound without much after suffering. The greater part of the time she lay in a comatose state, from which it was difficult to rouse her.

Arthur sat by the fire, with a book in his hand, which at times seemed deeply to interest him, and at others, he dropped it in his lap, and gazing intently into the glowing coals, appeared absorbed in the mysteries of thought.

About midnight, when reverie had deepened into slumber, he was startled by a low knock at the door. He had not fastened it as elaborately as Helen had done, and quickly and noiselessly opening it, he demanded who was there. It was a young boy, bearing him a note from the family he had visited the preceding night. His patient was attacked with some very alarming symptoms, and begged his immediate attendance. Having wakened the woman and commissioned her to watch during his absence, Arthur departed, surprised at the unexpected summons, as he had seen the patient at twilight, who then appeared in a fair way of recovery. His surprise was still greater, when arriving at the house he found that no summons had been sent for him, no note written, but the whole household were wrapped in peaceful slumbers. The note, which he carried in his pocket, was pronounced a forgery, and must have been written with some dark and evil design. But what could it be? Who could wish to draw him away from that poor, lone cottage, that poor sick, dying woman? It was strange, inexplicable.

Mr. Mason, the gentleman in whose name the note had been written, and who fortunately happened to be the sheriff of the county, insisted upon accompanying him back to the cottage, and aiding him to discover its mysterious purpose. It might be a silly plot of some silly boy, but that did not seem at all probable, as Arthur was so universally respected and beloved—and such was the dignity and affability of his character, that no one would think of playing upon him a foolish and insulting trick.

The distance was not great, and they walked with rapid footsteps over the crisp and frozen ground. Around the cabin, the snow formed a thick carpet, which, lying in shade, had not been glazed, like the general surface of the landscape. Their steps did not resound on this white covering, and instead of crossing the stile in front of the cabin, they vaulted over the fence and approached the door by a side path. The moment Arthur laid his hand upon the latch he knew some one had entered the house during his absence, for he had closed the door, and now it was ajar. With one bound he cleared the passage, and Mr. Mason, who was a tall and strong man, was not left much in the rear. The inner door was not latched, and opened at the touch. The current of air which rushed in with their sudden entrance rolled into the chimney, and the fire flashed up and roared, illuminating every object within. Near the centre of the room stood a man, wrapped in a dark cloak that completely concealed his figure, a dark mask covering his face, and a fur cap pulled deep over his forehead. He stood by the side of Miss Thusa's wheel, which presented the appearance of a ruin, with its brazen bands wrenched asunder, and its fragments strewed upon the floor. He was evidently arrested in the act of destruction, for one hand grasped the distaff, the other clinched something which he sought to conceal in the folds of his cloak.

Miss Thusa, partly raised on her elbow, which shook and trembled from the weight it supported, was gazing with impotent despair on her dismembered wheel. A dim fire quivered in her sunken eyes, and her sharpened and prominent features were made still more ghastly by the opaque frame-work of white linen that surrounded them. She was uttering faint and broken ejaculations.

"Monster—robber!—my treasure! Take the gold—take it, but spare my wheel! Poor Helen! I gave it to her! Poor child! It's she you are robbing, not me! Oh, my God! my heart-strings are breaking! My wheel, that I loved like a human being! Lord, Lord, have mercy upon me!"

These piteous exclamations met the ear of Arthur as he entered the room, and roused all the latent wrath of his nature. He forgot every thing but the dark, masked figure which, gathering up its cloak, sprang towards the door, with the intention of escaping, but an iron grasp held it back. Seldom, indeed, were the strong but subdued passions of Arthur Hazleton suffered to master him, but now they had the ascendency. He never thought of calling on Mr. Mason to assist him quietly in securing the robber, as he might have done, but yielding to an irresistible impulse of vengeance, he grappled fiercely with the mask, who writhed and struggled in his unclinching hold. Something fell rattling on the floor, and continued to rattle as the strife went on. Mr. Mason, knowing that by virtue of his authority he could arrest the offender at once, looked on with that strange pleasure which men feel in witnessing scenes of conflict. He was astonished at the transformation of the young doctor. He had always seen him so calm and gentle in the chamber of sickness, so peaceful in his intercourse with his fellow-men, that he did not know the lamb could be thus changed into the lion.

Arthur had now effected his object, in unmasking and uncloaking his antagonist, and he found himself face to face with—Bryant Clinton. The young men stood gazing at each other for a few moments in perfect silence. They were both of an ashy paleness, and their eyes glittered under the shadow of their darkened brows. But Clinton could not long sustain that steadfast, victor glance. His own wavered and fell, and the blood swept over his face in a reddening wave.

"Let me go," said he, in a low, husky voice, "I am in your power; but be magnanimous and release me. I throw myself on your generosity, not your justice."

Arthur's sternly upbraiding eye softened into an expression of the deepest sorrow, not unmingled with contempt, on beholding the degradation of this splendidly endowed young man. He reminded him of a fallen angel, with his glorious plumage all soiled and polluted with the mire and corruption of earth. He never had had faith in his integrity; be believed him to be the tempter of Louis, the deceiver of Mittie, reckless and unprincipled where pleasure was concerned, but he did not believe him capable of such a daring transgression. Had he been alone, he would have released him, for his magnanimity and generosity would have triumphed over his sense of justice, but legal authority was present, and to that he was forced to submit.

"I arrest you, sir, in virtue of my authority as sheriff of the county," exclaimed Mr. Mason; "empty your pockets of the gold you have purloined from this woman, and then follow me. Quick, or I'll give you rough aid."

The pomp and aristocracy of Clinton's appearance and manners had made him unpopular in the neighborhood, and it is not strange that a man whom he had never condescended to notice should triumph in his disgrace. He looked on with vindictive pleasure while Clinton, after a useless resistance, produced the gold he had secreted, but Arthur turned away his head in shame. He could not bear to witness the depth of his degradation. His cheek burned with painful blushes, as the gold clinked on the table, ringing forth the tale of Clinton's guilt.

"Now, sir, come along," cried the stern voice of the sheriff. "Doctor, I leave the care of this to you."

While he was speaking, he drew a pair of hand-cuffs from his pocket, which he had slipped in before leaving home, thinking they might come in use.

"You shall not degrade me thus!" exclaimed Clinton, haughtily, writhing in his grasp; "you shall never put those vile things on me!"

"Softly, softly, young gentleman," cried the sheriff, "I shall hurt your fair wrists if you don't stand still. There, that will do. Come along. No halting."

Arthur gave one glance towards the retreating form of Clinton, as he passed through the door, with his haughty head now drooping on his breast, wearing the iron badge of crime, and groaned in spirit, that so fair a temple should not be occupied by a nobler indwelling guest. So rapidly had the scene passed, so still and lone seemed the apartment, for Miss Thusa had sunk back on her pillow mute and exhausted, that he was tempted to believe that it was nothing but a dream. But the wheel lay in fragments at his feet, the gold lay in shining heaps upon the table, and a dark mask grinned from the floor. That gold, too!—how dream-like its existence! Was Miss Thusa a female Midas or Aladdin? Was the dull brass lamp burning on the table, the gift of the genii? Was the old gray cabin a witch's magic home?

Rousing himself with a strong effort, he examined the condition of his patient, and was grieved to find how greatly this shock had accelerated the work of disease. Her pulse was faint and flickering, her skin cold and clammy, but after swallowing a cordial, and inhaling the strong odor of hartshorn, a reaction took place, and she revived astonishingly; but when she spoke, her mind evidently wandered, sometimes into the shadows of the past, sometimes into the light of the future.

"What shall I do with this?" asked Arthur, pointing to the gold, anxious to bring her thoughts to some central point; "and these, too?" stooping down and picking up a fragment of the wheel.

"Screw it up again—screw it up," she replied, quickly, "and put the gold back in it. 'Tis Helen's—all little Helen's. Don't let them rob her after I'm dead."

Rejoicing to hear her speak so rationally, though wondering if what she said of Helen was not the imagining of a disordered brain, he began to examine the pieces of the wheel, and found that with the exertion of a little skill he could put them together again, and that it was only some slender parts of the machine which were broken. He placed the money in its hollow receptacles, united the brazen rings, and smoothed the tangled flax that twined the distaff. Ever and anon Miss Thusa turned her fading glance towards him, and murmured,

"It is good. It is good!"

For more than an hour she lay perfectly still, when suddenly moving, she exclaimed,

"Put away the curtain—it's too dark."

Arthur drew aside the curtain from the window nearest the bed, and the pale, cold moonlight came in, in white, shining bars, and striped the dark counterpane. One fell across Miss Thusa's face, and illuminated it with a strange and ghastly lustre.

"Has the moon gone down?" she asked. "I thought it stayed till morning in the sky. But my glasses are getting wondrous dim. I must have a new pair, doctor. How slow the wheel turns round; the band keeps slipping off, and the crank goes creaking, creaking, for want of oil. Little Helen, take your feet off the treadle, and don't sit so close, darling. I can't breathe."

She panted a few moments, catching her breath with difficulty, then tossing her arms above the bed-cover, said, in a fainter voice,

"The great wheel of eternity keeps rolling on, and we are all bound upon it. How grandly it moves, and all the time the flax on the distaff is smoking. God says in the Bible He will not quench it, but blow it to a flame. You've read the Bible, havn't you, doctor? It is a powerful book. It tells about Moses and the Lamb. I'll tell you a story, Helen, about a Lamb that was slain. I've told you a great many, but never one like this. Come nearer, for I can't speak very loud. Take care, the thread is sliding off the spool. Cut it, doctor, cut it; it's winding round my heart so tight! Oh, my God! it snaps in two!"

These were the last words the aged spinster ever uttered. The main-spring of life was broken. When the cold, gray light of morning had extinguished the pallid splendor of the moon, and one by one the objects in the little room came forth from the dimness of shade, which a single lamp had not power to disperse, a great change was visible. The dark covering of the bed was removed, the bed itself was gone—but through a snowy white sheet that was spread over the frame, the outline of a tall form was visible. All was silent as the grave. A woman sat by the hearth, with a grave and solemn countenance—so grave and so solemn she seemed a fixture in that still apartment. The wheel stood still by the bed-frame, the spectacles lay still on the Bible, and a dark, gray dress hung in still, dreary folds against the wall.

After a while the woman rose, and walking on tiptoe, holding her breath as she walked, pulled the sheet a little further one side. Foolish woman! had she stepped with the thunderer's tread, she could not have disturbed the cold sleeper, covered with that snowy sheet.

Two or three hours after, the door opened and the young doctor entered with a young girl clinging to his arm. She was weeping, and as soon as she caught a glimpse of the white sheet she burst into loud sobs.

"We will relieve you of your watch a short time," said Arthur; and the woman left the room. He led Helen to the bedside, and turning back the sheet, exposed the venerable features composed into everlasting repose. Helen did not recoil or tremble as she gazed. She even hushed her sobs, as if fearing to ruffle the inexpressible placidity of that dreamless rest. Every trace of harshness was removed from the countenance, and a serene melancholy reigned in its stead. A smile far more gentle than she ever wore in life, lingered on the wan and frozen lips.

"How benign she looks," ejaculated Helen, "how happy! I could gaze forever on that peaceful, silent face—and yet I once thought death so terrible."

"Life is far more fearful, Helen. Life, with all its feverish unrest, its sinful strife, its storms of passion and its waves of sorrow. Oh, had you beheld the scene which I last night witnessed in this very room—a scene in which life revelled in wildest power, you would tremble at the thought of possessing a vitality capable of such unholy excitement—you would envy the quietude of that unbreathing bosom."

"And yet," said Helen, "I have often heard you speak of life as an inestimable, a glorious gift, as so rich a blessing that the single heart had not room to contain the gratitude due."

"And so it is, Helen, if rightly used. I am wrong to give it so dark a coloring—ungrateful, because my own experience is bright beyond the common lot—unwise, for I should not sadden your views by anticipation. Yes, if life is fearful from its responsibilities, it is glorious in its hopes and rich in its joys. Its mysteries only increase its grandeur, and prove its divine origin."

Thus Arthur continued to talk to Helen, sustaining and elevating her thoughts, till she forgot that she came in sorrow and tears.

There was another, who came, when he thought none was near, to pay the last tribute of sorrow over the remains of Miss Thusa, and that was Louis. He thought of his last interview with her, and her last words reverberated in his ear in the silence of that lonely room—"In the name of your mother in Heaven, go and sin no more."

Louis sunk upon his knees by that cold and voiceless form, and vowed, in the strength of the Lord, to obey her parting injunction. He could never now repay the debt he owed, but he could do more—he could be just to himself and the memory of her who had opened her lips wisely to reprove, and her hand kindly to relieve.

Peace be to thee, ancient sibyl, lonely dweller of the old gray cottage. No more shall thy busy fingers twist with curious skill the flaxen fibres that wreath thy distaff—no more shall the hum of thy wheel mingle in chorus with the buzzing of the fly and the chirping of the cricket. But as thou didst say in thy dying hour, "the great wheel of eternity keeps rolling on," and thou art borne along with it, no longer a solitary, weary pilgrim, without an arm to sustain or kindred heart to cheer, but we humbly trust, one of that innumerable, glorious company, who, clothed in white robes and bearing branching palms, sing the great praise-song that never shall end, "Allelulia—the Lord God omnipotent reigneth."



CHAPTER XIII.

"Come, madness! come unto me senseless death, I cannot suffer this! here, rocky wall, Scatter these brains, or dull them."—Baillie.

"I know not, I ask not, If guilt's in thy heart— I but know that I love thee, Whatever thou art."—Moore.

In a dark and gloomy apartment, whose grated windows and dreary walls were hung here and there with blackening cobwebs—and whose darkness and gloom were made visible by the pale rays of a glimmering lamp, sat the young, the handsome, the graceful, the fascinating Bryant Clinton. He sat, or rather partly reclined on the straw pallet, spread in a corner of the room, propped on one elbow, with his head drooping downward, and his long hair hanging darkly over his face, as if seeking to veil his misery and shame.

It was a poor place for such an occupant. He was a young man of leisure now, and had time to reflect on the past, the present, and the future.

The past!—golden opportunities, lost by neglect, swept away by temptation, or sold to sin. The present!—detection, humiliation, and ignominy. The future!—long and dreary imprisonment—companionship with the vilest of the vile, his home a tomb-like cell in the penitentiary—his food, bread and water—his bed, a handful of straw—his dress, the felon's garb of shame—his magnificent hair shorn close as the slaughtered sheep's—his soft white hands condemned to perpetual labor!

As this black scroll slowly unrolled before his spirit's eye, this black scroll, on which the characters and images gleamed forth so red and fiery, it is no wonder that he writhed and groaned and gnashed his teeth—it is no wonder that he started up and trod the narrow cell with the step of a maniac—that he stopped and ground his heel in the dust—that he rushed to the window and shook the iron bars, with unavailing rage—that he called on God to help him—not in the fervor of faith, but the recklessness of frenzy, the impotence of despair.

Suddenly a deadly sickness came over him, and reeling back to his pallet, he buried his face in his hands and wept aloud—and the wail of his soul was that of the first doomed transgressor, "My punishment is greater than I can bear."

While there he lies, a prey to keen and unavailing agonies, we will take a backward glance at the romance of his childhood, and the temptations of his youth.

Bryant Clinton was the son of obscure parents. When a little boy, his remarkable beauty attracted the admiration of every beholder. He was the pet of the village school, the favorite on the village green. His intelligence and grace were equal to his beauty, and all of these attributes combined in one of his lowly birth, seemed so miraculous, he was universally admitted to be a prodigy—a nonpareil. When he was about ten years of age, a gentleman of wealth and high social standing, was passing through the town, and, like all strangers, was struck by the remarkable appearance of the boy. This gentleman was unmarried, though in the meridian of life, and of course, uncontrolled master of all his movements. He was very peculiar in character, and his impulses, rather than his principles, guided his actions. He did not love his relatives, because he thought their attentions were venal, and resolved to adopt this beautiful boy, not so much from feelings of benevolence towards him, as a desire to disappoint his mercenary kindred. Bryant's natural affections were not strong enough to prove any impediment to the stranger's wish, and his parents were willing to sacrifice theirs, for the brilliant advantages offered to their son. Behold our young prodigy transplanted to a richer soil, and a more genial atmosphere. His benefactor resided in a great city, far from the little village where he was born, so that all the associations of his childhood were broken up and destroyed. He even took the name of his adopted father, thus losing his own identity. Had Mr. Clinton been a man of pure and upright principles, had he been faithful to the guardianship he had assumed, and educated his heart, as well as his mind, Bryant might have been the ornament instead of the disgrace, the blessing instead of the bane of society. He had no salient propensities to evil, no faults which righteous wisdom might not have disciplined. But indulged, caressed, praised and admired by all around him, the selfishness inherent in our nature, acquired a hot-bed growth from the sultry moral atmosphere which he breathed.

The gentle, yet restraining influence which woman, in her purity and excellence, ever exerts, was unfortunately denied him. Mr. Clinton was a bachelor, and the careful, bustling housekeeper, who kept his servants and house in order, was not likely to burden herself with the charge of young Bryant's morals. All that Mr. Clinton supervised, was his progress at school, which surpassed even his most sanguine expectations. He was still the prodigy—the nonpareil—and as he had the most winning, insinuating manners—he was still the favorite of teachers and pupils. As he grew older, he was taken much into society, and young as he was, inhaled, with the most intense delight, the incense of female adulation. The smiles and caresses bestowed upon the boy-paragon by beautiful and charming women, instead of fostering his affections, as they would have done, had they been lavished upon him for his virtues rather than his graces, gave precocious growth and vigor to his vanity, till, like the cedar of Lebanon, it towered above all other passions. This vanity was only visible to others in an earnest desire to please—it only made him appear more amiable and gentle, but it was so strong, so vital, that it could not, "but by annihilating, die."

Another fatal influence acted upon him. Mr. Clinton, like most rich bachelors, was fond of having convivial suppers, where wine and mirth abounded. To these young Bryant was often admitted, for his beauty and talents were the pride and boast of his adopted father. Here he was initiated into the secrets of the gaming-table, not by practice, (for he was not allowed to play himself,) but by observation, a medium of instruction sufficiently transparent to his acute and subtle mind. Here he was accustomed to hear the name of God uttered either in irreverence or blasphemy, and the cold sneer of infidelity withered the germs of piety a mother's hand had planted in his bosom. Better, far better had it been for him, never to have left his parent's humble but honest dwelling.

Just as he was about to enter college, Mr. Clinton suddenly died of a stroke of apoplexy, leaving the youth whom he had adopted, exposed to the persecutions of his worldly and venal relatives. He had resolved to make a will, bequeathing his property to Bryant, as his sole heir; but having a great horror of death, he could not bear to perform the act which would remind him too painfully of his mortality.

"Time enough when I am taken sick," he would say, "to attend to these things;" but the blow which announced the coming of death, crushed the citadel of thought. There was no time for making wills, and Bryant was left far poorer than his adopted father had found him, for he had acquired all the tastes which wealth alone can gratify, and all the vices, too.

When he returned, reluctant and disappointed, with alienated feelings, to his native home, he found that his father was dead, and his mother a solitary widow. By selling the little farm which had served them for a support, and restricting herself of every luxury, and many comforts, she could defray the expenses of a collegiate education, and this she resolved to do. Bryant accepted the sacrifice without hesitation, deeming it his legitimate right.

On his way to the university, which was still more remote from his native village than that was from the home of his adopted father, he conceived the design of imposing upon his new companions the story of his Virginian birth—though born in reality in one of the Middle States. He had heard so much of Virginian aristocracy, of the pride of tracing one's descent from one of the first families of Virginia, that he thought it a pardonable deception if it increased his dignity and consequence. He was ashamed of his parentage, which was concealed under the somewhat patrician name of Clinton, and as he chose to change his birth-place, it was not very probable that his real origin would be discovered. He had previously ascertained that no boys were members of the college, who had ever seen him before, or who knew any thing of the region where he had dwelt. He soon became a star-scholar, from the brilliancy of his talents, and a favorite, too, from the graceful pliancy of his manners, and apparent sweetness of his disposition. But with all his grace and sweetness, he was unprincipled and dissolute, and exerted the commanding influence he had acquired over the minds of his companions, to lead them into temptation, and lure them to sin. Yet he had the art to appear himself the tempted, as well as they. His agency was as invisible as it was powerful, and as fatal, too. When, with seeming reluctance, he took his seat at the gaming-table and won, as he invariably did, from his unsuspecting comrades, he manifested the deepest regret and keenest remorse. No one suspected that it was through his instrumentality they were seduced into error and ruin.

Louis, the impulsive, warm-hearted, and confiding Louis Gleason, was drawn as if by fascination towards this young man. There was a luminous atmosphere around him, that dazzled the judgment, and rendered it blind to his moral defects. Dissipation appeared covered with a golden tissue, that concealed all its deformity; and reckless prodigality received the honors due to princely generosity.

When Clinton accompanied Louis to his father's house, and beheld the beautiful Mittie, gilt, as he first saw her by the rays of the setting sun, he gave her the spontaneous homage which beauty ever received from him. He admired and for a little time imagined he loved her. But she was too easy a conquest to elate his vanity, and he soon wearied of her too exacting love. Helen, the shy, child-like, simple hearted Helen, baffled and interested him. She shunned and feared him, and therefore he pursued her with increasing fervor of feeling and earnestness of purpose. Finding himself terribly annoyed by Mittie's frantic jealousy, he resolved to absent himself awhile till the tempest he had raised was lulled, and urging Louis to be his companion, that he might have a plea for returning, departed, as has been described, not to his pretended home, but to haunts of guilty pleasure, where the deluded Louis followed, believing in his infatuation that he was only walking side by side with one sorely tempted, reluctantly transgressing, and as oft repenting as himself.

With the native chivalry of his character, he refused to criminate his friend, and justify his father's anger. It was to Clinton his debts of honor were chiefly due, and it was for this reason he shrunk from revealing them to his father.

When Clinton found himself excluded from the presence of Helen, whose love he was resolved to win, his indignation and mortification were indescribable; but acknowledging no obstacles to his designs, he watched his opportunity and entered Miss Thusa's cabin, as we have related in the last chapter. He was no actor in that interview, for he really felt for Helen, emotions purer, deeper and stronger than he had ever before cherished for woman. He had likewise all the stimulus of rivalry, for he believed that Arthur Hazleton loved her, that calm, self-possessed and inscrutable being, whose dark, spirit-reaching eye his own had ever shunned. Helen's unaffected terror, her repulsion and flight were wormwood and gall to his pampered vanity and starving love. Her undisguised emotion at the mention of Arthur, convinced him of his ascendency over her heart, and the hopelessness of his present pursuit. Still he lingered near the spot, unwilling to relinquish an object that seemed more and more precious as the difficulty of obtaining it increased. He stood by the window, watching, at times, glimpses of Helen's sweet, yet troubled countenance, as the curtain flapped in the wintry wind. It was then he heard Miss Thusa relate the secret of her hidden wealth, and the demon of temptation whispered in his ear that the hidden gold might be his. Helen cared not for it—she knew not its value, she needed it not. Very likely when the wheel should come into her possession, and she examined its mystery, if the legacy were missing, she would believe its history the dream of an excited imagination, and think of it no more. He had never stolen, and it did seem low and ungentlemanlike to steal, but this was more like finding some buried treasure, something cast up from the ocean's bed. It was not so criminal after all as cheating at the gaming-table, which he was in the constant habit of doing. Then why should he hesitate if opportunity favored his design? Mr. Gleason had insulted him in the grossest manner, Helen had rejected him, Louis had released himself from his thraldom. There was no motive for him to remain longer where he was, and he was assured suspicion would never rest on him, though he took his immediate departure. The next night he attempted to execute his shameful purpose by forging the note, sending it by an unsuspecting messenger, thus despatching the young doctor, on a professional errand. Every thing seemed to favor him. The woman whom Arthur had commanded to keep watch during his absence had sunk back into a heavy sleep as soon as his voice died on her ear—so there was nothing to impede the robber's entrance. Clinton waited till he thought Arthur had had time to reach the place of his destination, and then stole into the sick chamber with noiseless steps. Miss Thusa was awakened by a metallic, grating sound, and beheld, with unspeakable horror, her beloved wheel lying in fragments at the feet of the spoiler. The detection, the arrest, the imprisonment are already known.

And now the unhappy young man lay on his bed of straw, in an ignominious cell, cursing the gold that had tempted, and the weakness and folly that had yielded and rushed into the snare. Louis had visited him, but his visit had afforded no consolation. What was pity or sympathy without the power to release him? Nothing, yea, worse than nothing. He could not tell the hour, for time, counted by the throbs of an agonized heart, seems to have the attribute of eternity—endless duration. He knew it was night by the lamp which had been brought in with the bread and water, which stood untasted by him. He had not noticed the darkening shadow stealing over the grated windows, his soul was so dark within. He knew, too, that it must be somewhat late, for the lamp grew dimmer and dimmer, capped by a long, black wick, with a hard, fiery crest.

He heard the key twisting in the rusted lock, the door swinging heavily open, and supposed the jailor was examining the cells before retiring to rest. He was confirmed in this belief by seeing his figure through the opening, but when another figure glided in, and the jailor retreated, locking the door behind him, he knew that his prison had received an unexpected guest. He could not imagine what young boy had thought of visiting his cell, for he knew not one of the age this youth appeared to be. He was wrapped in a dark cloak, so long that it swept the prison floor, and a dark fur cap pulled far over the forehead, shaded his face.

Clinton raised himself on his elbow and called out, in a gloomy tone, "Who is there?"

The youth advanced with slow steps, gathering up the sweeping folds of his cloak as he walked, and sunk down upon the wooden bench placed against the damp brick wall. Lifting his hands and clasping them together, he bowed his face upon them, while his frame shook with imprisoned emotion. The hands clasped over his face gleamed like snow in the dim cell, and they were small and delicate in shape, as a woman's. The dejected and drooping attitude, the downcast face, the shrouded and trembling form, the feminine shame visible through the disguise, awakened a wild hope in his heart. Springing up from his pallet, he eagerly approached the seeming boy, and exclaimed—

"Helen, Helen—have you relented at last? Do you pity and forgive me? Do you indeed love me?"

"Ungrateful wretch!" cried a voice far different from Helen's. The drooping head was quickly raised, the cap dashed from the head, and the cloak hurled from the shoulders. "Ungrateful wretch, as false as vile, do you know me now?"

"Mittie! is it indeed you?" said Clinton, involuntarily recoiling a few steps from the fiery glance that flashed through her tears. "I am not worthy of this condescension."

"Condescension!" repeated she, disdainfully. "Condescension! Yes—you say well. You did not expect me!" continued she, in a tone of withering sarcasm. "I am sorry for your disappointment. I am sorry the gentle Helen did not see fit to leave her downy bed, and warm room, braving the inclemency of the wintry blast, to minister to her waiting lover. It is a wondrous pity."

Then changing her accent, and bursting into a strain of the most impassioned emotion—

"Oh, my soul! was it for this I came forth alone, in darkness and stealth, like the felon whose den I sought? Is it on such a being as this, I have wasted such boundless wealth of love? Father, mother, brother, sister—all vainly urged their claims upon my heart. It was marble—it was ice to them. They thought I was made of stone, granite; would to Heaven I were. But you, Clinton; but you breathed upon the rock, you softened, you warmed; and now, wretch, you grind it into powder. You melted the ice—and having drained the waters, you have left a dry and burning channel—here."

Mittie pressed her hand upon her heart, with a gesture of pain, and began to traverse wildly the narrow cell; her cloak, which had fallen back from her shoulders, sweeping in the dust. Every passion was wrestling for mastery in her bosom.

"Why," she exclaimed, suddenly stopping and gazing fixedly upon him, "why did you make me conscious of this terrible vitality? What motive had you for crossing my path, and like Attila, the destroyer, withering every green blade beneath my feet? I had never wronged you. What motive, I ask, had you for deceiving and mocking me, who so madly trusted, so blindly worshipped?"

"Spare me, Mittie," exclaimed the humbled and convicted Clinton. "Trample not on a fallen wretch, who has nothing to say in his defence. But one thing I will say, I have not intended to deceive you. I did love you, and felt at the time all that I professed. Had you loved me less, I had been more constant. But why, let me ask, have you sought me here, to upbraid me for my inconstancy? What good can it do to you or to me? You call me a wretch: and I acknowledge myself to be one, a vile, ungrateful wretch. Call me a thief, if you will, if the word does not blister your tongue to utter it. I confess it all. Now leave me to my fate."

"Confess one thing more," said Mittie, "speak to me as if it were your dying hour—for you will soon be dead to me, and tell me, if it is for the love of Helen you abandon mine?"

Clinton hesitated, a red color flushed his pallid cheek. He could not at that moment, in the presence of such deep and true passion, utter a falsehood; and degraded as he was, he could not bear to inflict the pain an avowal of the truth might cause.

"Speak," she urged, "and speak truly. It is all the atonement I ask."

"My love can only reflect disgrace on its object. Rejoice that it rests on her, rather than yourself. But she has avenged your wrongs. She rejected me before my hand was polluted with this last foul crime. She upbraided me for my perfidy to you, and fled from my sight with horror. Had she loved me, I might have been saved—but I am lost now."

Mittie stood immovable as a statue. Her eyes were fixed upon the floor, her brow contracted and her lips firmly closed. She appeared to be going through a petrifying process, so marble was her complexion, so rigid her features, so unchanging her attitude.

"'Twas but a moment o'er her soul Winters of memory seemed to roll,"

congealing her as they rolled. As Clinton looked upon her and contrasted that pale and altered form, with the resplendent figure that he had beheld like an embodied rainbow on the sun-gilded arch, his conscience stung him with a scorpion sting. He had said to himself, while parlying with the tempter about the gold, that he had never stolen. He now felt convicted of a far worse robbery, of a more inexpiable crime—for which God, if not man, would judge him—the theft of a young and trusting heart, of its peace, its confidence and hope, leaving behind a cold and dreary void. He could not bear the sight of that desolate figure, so lately quickened with glowing passions.

"Clinton," said Mittie, breaking the silence in a low, oppressed voice, "I see you have one virtue left, of the wreck of all others. I honor that one. You asked me why I came. I will tell you. I knew you guilty, steeped in ignominy, the scorn and by-word of the town, guilty too of a crime more vile than murder, for murder may be committed from the wild impulse of exasperated passion—but theft is a cold, deliberate, selfish, coward act. Yet knowing all this, I felt willing to brave every danger, to face death itself, if it were necessary, to release you from the horrid doom that awaits you—to save you from the living grave which yawns to receive you. I am willing still, in spite of your alienated affection, your perjured vows and broken faith—so mighty and all-conquering is even the memory of the love of woman. Here, wrap this cloak about you, pull this cap over your brows—your long, dark hair will aid the disguise. The jailer will not detect it, or mark your taller figure, by this dim and gloomy light. He is sleepy and weary, and I know his senses are deadened by brandy; I perceived its burning fumes as we walked that close and narrow passage. Clinton, there is no danger to myself in this release, you know there is not. The moment they discover me, they will let me go. Hasten, for he will soon be here."

"Impossible," exclaimed Clinton, "I cannot consent; I cannot leave you in this cell—this cold, fireless cell, on such a night as this. I cannot expose you to your father's displeasure, to the censures of the world. No, Mittie, I am not worthy of this generous devotion; but from my soul I bless you for it. Besides, it would be all in vain. A discovery would be inevitable."

"Escape would be certain," she cried, with increasing energy. "I marked that jailer well—his senses are too much blunted for the exercise of clear perception. You are slender and not very tall; your face is as fair as mine, your hair of the same color. If you refuse, I will seek a colder couch than that pallet of straw; I will pass the night under the leafless trees, and my pillow shall be the snowy ground. As for my father's displeasure, I have incurred it already. As for the censures of the world, I scorn them. What do you call the world? This village, this town, this little, narrow sphere? I live in a world of my own, as high above it as the heavens are above the earth."

Clinton's opposition weakened before her commanding energy. The hope of freedom kindled in his breast, and lighted up his countenance.

"But you," said he, irresolutely, "even if you could endure the horrors of the night, cannot be concealed on his entrance. How can you pass for me?" he cried, looking down on her woman's apparel, for she had thrown the cloak over his arm, and stood in her own flowing robes.

"I will throw myself on the pallet, and draw the blankets over me. My sable locks," gathering them back in her hand, for they hung loosely round her face—"are almost the counterpart of yours. I can conceal their length thus." Untying the scarf which passed over her shoulders and encircled her waist, she folded it over her flowing hair. "When the blanket is over me," she added, "I shall escape detection. Hasten! Think of the long years of imprisonment, the solitary dungeon, the clanking chains, the iron that will daily enter your soul. Think of all this, and fly! Hark! I hear footsteps in the passage. Don't you hear them? My God! it will be too late!"

Seizing the cloak, she threw it over his shoulders, snatched up the cap, and put it upon his head, which involuntarily bent to receive it, and wildly tearing herself from the arms that wrapped her in a parting embrace, sprang to the pallet, and shrouded herself in the dismal folds from which Clinton had shrunk in disgust.

Clinton drew near the door. It opened, and Arthur Hazleton entered the cell. The jailer stood on the outside, fumbling at the lock, turning the massy key backward and forward, making a harsh, creaking sound. His head was bent close to the lock, in which there appeared to be some impediment. The noise which he made with the grating key, the stooping position he had assumed, favored the escape of Clinton.

As Arthur entered, he glided out, unperceived by him, for the jailer had brought no light, and the prisoner was standing in the shadow of the wall.

"There," grumbled the jailer, "I believe that will do—I must have this lock fixed to-morrow. Here, doctor, take the key, I can trust you, I know. When you are ready to go, drop it in my room, just underneath this. I mean drop in, and give it to me, I am sick to-night. I am obliged to go to bed."

Arthur assured him that he would attend faithfully to his directions, and that he might retire in perfect security. Then locking the door within, he walked towards the pallet, where the supposed form of the prisoner lay, in the stillness of dissembled sleep. His face was turned towards the straw, the bed cover was drawn up over his neck, nothing was distinctly visible in the obscurity but a mass of dark, gleaming hair, reflecting back the dim light from its jetty mirror.

Arthur did not like to banish from his couch, that

"Friend to the wretch, whom every friend forsakes."

He seated himself on the bench, folded his cloak around him, and awaited in silence the awakening of the prisoner. He had come, in obedience to the commands of his Divine Master, to visit those who are in prison, and minister unto them. Not as Mittie had done, to assist him in eluding the just penalty of the offended majesty of the laws. He did not believe the perpetrator of such a crime as Clinton's entitled to pardon, but he looked upon every son of Adam as a brother, and as such an object of pity and kindness.

While he sat gazing on the pallet, watching for the first motion that would indicate the dispersion of slumber, he heard a cough issuing from it, which his practiced ear at once recognized as proceeding from a woman's lungs. A suspicion of the truth flashed into his mind. He rose, bent over the couch, and taking hold of the covering, endeavored to draw it back from the face it shrouded. He could see the white hands that clinched it, and a tress of long, waving hair, loosened by the motion, floated on his sight.

"Mittie—Mittie Gleason!" he exclaimed, bending on one knee, and trying to raise her—"how came you here? Yet, why do I ask? I know but too well—Clinton has escaped—and you—"

"I am here!" she cried, starting to her feet, and shaking back her hair, which fell in a sable mantle over her shoulders, flowing far below the waist. "I am here. What do you wish of me? I am not prepared to receive company just yet," she added, deridingly; "my room is rather unfurnished."

She looked so wild and unnatural, her tone was so mocking, her glance so defying, Arthur began to fear that her reason was disordered. Fever was burning on her cheeks, and it might be the fire of delirium that sparkled in her eyes. He took her hand very gently, and tried to count the beatings of her pulse, but she snatched it from him with violence, and commanded him to leave her.

"This is my sanctuary," she cried. "You have no right to intrude into it. Begone!—I will be alone."

"Mittie, I will not leave you here—you must return with me to your father's house. Think of the obloquy you may incur by remaining. Come, before another enters."

"If I go, you will be suspected of releasing the prisoner, and suffer the penalty due for such an act. No, no, I have braved all consequences, and I dare to meet them."

"Then I leave you to inform the jailer of the flight of the prisoner. It is my duty."

"You will not do so mean and unmanly a deed!" springing between him and the door, and pressing her back against it. "You will not basely inform of him whom a young girl has had the courage to release. You—a man, will not do it. Will you?"

"An act of justice is never base or cowardly. Clinton is a convicted thief, and deserves the doom impending over such transgressors. He is an unprincipled and profligate young man, and unworthy the love of a pure-hearted woman. He has tempted your brother from the paths of virtue, repaid your confidence with the coldest treachery, violated the laws of God and man, and yet, unparalleled infatuation—you love him still, and expose yourself to slander and disgrace for his sake."

He spoke sternly, commandingly. He had tried reason and persuasion, he now spoke with authority, but it was equally in vain.

"Who told you that I love him?" she repeated. "'Tis false. I hate him. I hate him!" she again repeated, but her lips quivered, and her voice choked.

Arthur hailed this symptom of sensibility as a favorable omen. He had never intended to inform the jailer of Clinton's escape. He would not be instrumental to such an event himself, knowing, as he did, his guilt, but since it had been effected by another, he could not help rejoicing in heart. Perhaps Clinton might profit by this bitter lesson, and "reformation glittering over his faults"—efface by its lustre the dark stain upon his name. And while he condemned the rashness and mourned for the misguided feelings of Mittie, he could not repress an involuntary thrill of admiration for her deep, self-sacrificing love. What a pity that a passion so sublime in its strength and despair should be inspired by a being so unworthy.

"Will you not let me pass?" said he.

"Never, for such a purpose."

"I disclaim it altogether, I never intended to put in execution the threat I breathed. It was to induce you to leave this horrible place that I uttered it. I am ashamed of the subterfuge, though the motive was pure. Mittie, I entreat you to come with me; I entreat you with the sincerity of a friend, the earnestness of a brother. I will never breathe to a human being the mystery of Clinton's escape. I will guard your reputation with the most jealous vigilance. Not even my blind Alice shall be considered a more sacred trust than you, if you confide yourself to my protecting care."

"Are you indeed my friend?" she asked, in a softened voice, with a remarkable change in the expression of her countenance. "I thought you hated me."

"Hated you! What a suspicion!"

"You have always been cold and distant—never sought my friendship, or manifested for me the least regard. When I was but a child, and you first visited our family, I was attracted towards you, less by your gentle manners than your strong, controlling will. Had you shown as much interest in me as you did in Helen, you might have had a wondrous influence on my character. You might have saved me from that which is destroying me. But it is all past. You slighted me, and lavished all your care on Helen. Every one cared for Helen more than me, and my heart grew colder and colder to her and all who loved her. What I have since felt, and why I have felt it for others, God only knows. Others! Why should I say others? There never was but one—and that one, the false felon, whom I once believed an angel of light. And he, even he has thrown my heart back bleeding at my feet, for the love he bears to Helen."

"Which Helen values not," said the young doctor, half in assertion and half in interrogation.

"No, no," she replied, "a counter influence has saved her from the misery and shame."

Mittie paused, clasped her hands together, and pressed them tightly on her bosom.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, "it is no metaphor, when they talk of arrows piercing the breast. I feel them here."

Her countenance expressed physical suffering as well as mental agony. She shivered with cold one moment, the next glowed with feverish heat.

Arthur took off his cloak, and folded it round her, and she offered no resistance. She was sinking into that passive state, which often succeeds too high-wrought emotion.

"You are very kind," said she, "but you will suffer."

"No—I am accustomed to brave the elements. But if you think I suffer, let us hasten to a warmer region. Give me your hand."

Firmly grasping it, he extinguished the lamp, and in total darkness they left the cell, groped through the long, narrow passage, down the winding stairs, at the foot of which was the jailer's room. Arthur was familiar with this gloomy dwelling, so often had he visited it on errands of mercy and compassion. It was not the first time he had been entrusted with the key of the cells, though he suspected that it would be the last. The keeper, only half awakened, received the key, locked his own door, and went back to his bed, muttering that "there were not many men to be trusted, but the young doctor was one."

When Arthur and Mittie emerged from the dark prison-house into the clear, still moonlight, (for the moon had risen, and over the night had thrown a veil of silvery gauze,) Arthur's excited spirit subsided into peace, beneath its pale, celestial glory. Mittie thought of the fugitive, and shrunk from the beams that might betray his flight. The sudden barking of the watch-dog made her tremble. Even their own shadows on the white, frozen ground, she mistook for the avengers of crime, in the act of pursuit.

"What shall we do?" said Arthur, when, having arrived at Mr. Gleason's door, they found it fastened. "I wish you could enter unobserved."

Mittie's solitary habits made her departure easy, and her absence unsuspected, but she could not steal in through the bolts and locks that impeded her admission.

"No matter," she cried, "leave me here—I will lie down by the threshold, and wait the morning. All places are alike to me."

Louis, whose chamber was opposite to Mittie's, in the front part of the house, and who now had many a sleepless night, heard voices in the portico, and opening the window, demanded "who was there?"

"Come down softly and open the door," said Arthur, "I wish to speak to you."

Louis hastily descended, and unlocked the door.

His astonishment, on seeing his sister with Arthur Hazleton, at that hour, when he supposed her in her own room, was so great that he held the door in his hand, without speaking or offering to admit them.

"Let us in as noiselessly as possible," said Arthur. "Take her directly to her chamber, kindle a fire, give her a generous glass of Port wine, and question her not to-night. Let no servant be roused. Wait upon her yourself, and be silent on the morrow. Good-night."

"It is too bright," whispered she, as Louis half carried her up stairs, stepping over the checker-work the moon made on the carpet.

"What is too bright, Mittie?"

"Nothing. Make haste—I am very cold."

Louis led Mittie to a chair, then lighting a candle, he knelt down and gathered together the still smoking brands. A bright fire soon blazed on the hearth, and illuminated the apartment.

"Now for the wine," said he.

"He is gone, Louis," said she, laying her hand on his arm. "He is fled. I released him. Was it not noble in me, when he loves Helen, and he a thief, too?"

Louis thought she spoke very strangely, and he looked earnestly at her glittering eyes.

"I am glad of it!" he exclaimed—"he is a villain, but I am glad he is escaped. But you, Mittie—you should not have done this. How could you do it? Did Arthur Hazleton help you?"

"Oh, no! I did it very easily—I gave him your cloak and cap. You must not be angry, you shall have new ones. They fitted him very nicely. He would run faster, if my heart-strings did not get tangled round his feet, all bleeding, too. Don't you remember, Miss Thusa told you about it, long ago?"

"My God, Mittie! what makes you talk in that way? Don't talk so. Don't look so. For Heaven's sake, don't look so wild."

"I can't help it, Louis," said she, pressing her hands on the top of her head, "I feel so strange here. I do believe I'm mad."

She was indeed delirious. The fever which for many days had been burning in her veins, now lighted its flames in her brain, and raged for more than a week with increasing violence.

She did not know, while she lay tossing in delirious agony, that the fugitive, Clinton, had been overtaken, and brought back in chains to a more hopeless, because doubly guarded captivity.

Justice triumphed over love.

He who sows the wind, must expect to reap the whirlwind.



CHAPTER XIV.

"High minds of native pride and force, Most deeply feel thy pangs, remorse."—Scott.

"Lord, at Thy feet ashamed I lie, Upward I dare not look— Pardon my sins before I die, And blot them from Thy book."—Hymn.

When Mittie awoke from the wild dream of delirium, she was weak as a new-born infant. For a few moments she imagined herself the inhabitant of another world. The deep quietude of the apartment, its soft, subdued, slumberous light, the still, watching figures seated by her bedside, formed so strong a contrast to the gloomy cell, with its chill, damp air, and glimmering lamp—its rough keeper and agitated inmate—that cell which, it appeared to her, she had just quitted. Two fair young forms, with arms interlaced, and heads inclined towards each other, the one with locks of rippling gold, the other of soft, wavy brown, seemed watching angels to her unclosing eyes. She felt a soft pressure on her faintly throbbing pulse, and knew that on the other side, opposite the watching angels, a manly figure was bending over her. She could not turn her head to gaze upon it, but there was a benignity in its presence which soothed and comforted her. Other forms were there also, but they faded away in a soft, hazy atmosphere, and her drooping eye-lids again closed.

In the long, tranquil slumber that followed, she passed the crisis of her disease, and the strife-worn, wandering spirit returned to the throne it had abdicated.

And now Mittie became conscious of the unbounded tenderness and care lavished upon her by every member of the household, and of the unwearied attentions of Arthur Hazleton. Helen herself could not have been more kindly, anxiously nursed. She, who had believed herself an object of indifference or dislike to all, was the central point of solicitude now. If she slept, every one moved as if shod with velvet, the curtains were gently let down, all occupation suspended, lest it should disturb the pale slumberer;—if she waked, some kind hand was ever ready to smooth her pillow, wipe the dew of weakness from her brow, and administer the cordial to her wan lips.

"Why do you all nurse me so tenderly?" asked she of her step-mother, one night, when she was watching by her. "Me, who have never done any thing for others?"

"You are sick and helpless, and dependent on our care. The hand of God is laid upon you, and whosoever He smites, becomes a sacred object in the Christian's eyes."

"Then it is not from love you minister to my weakness. I thought it could not be."

"Yes, Mittie. It is from love. We always love those who depend on us for life. Your sufferings have been great, and great is our sympathy. Pity, sympathy, tenderness, all flow towards you, and no remembrance of the past mingles bitterness with their balm."

"But, mother, I do not wish to live. It were far kinder to let me die."

It was the first time Mittie had ever addressed her thus. The name seemed to glide unconsciously from her lips, breathed by her softened spirit.

Mrs. Gleason was moved even to tears. She felt repaid for all her forbearance, all her trials, by the utterance of this one little word, so long and so ungratefully withheld. Bending forward, with an involuntary movement, she kissed the faded lips, which, when rosy with health, had always repelled her maternal caresses. She felt the feeble arm of the invalid pass round her neck, and draw her still closer. She felt, too, tears which did not all flow from her own eyes moisten her cheek.

"I do not wish to live, mother," repeated Mittie, after this ebullition of sensibility had subsided. "I can never again be happy. I never can make others happy. I am willing to die. Every time I close my eyes I pray that my sleep may be death, my bed my grave."

"Ah! my child, pray not for death because you have been saved from the curse of a granted prayer. Pray rather that you may live to atone by a life of meekness and humility for past errors. You ought not to be willing to die with so great a purpose unaccomplished, since God does not now will you to depart. You mistake physical debility for resignation, weariness of life for desire for heaven. Oh, Mittie, not in the sackcloth and ashes of selfish sorrow should the spirit be clothed to meet its God."

Mittie lay for some time without speaking, then lifting her melancholy black eyes, once so haughty and brilliant, she said—

"I will tell you why I wish to die. I am now humbled and subdued—conscious and ashamed of my errors, grateful for your unexampled goodness. If I die now, you will shed some tears over my grave, and perhaps say, 'Poor girl! she was so young, and so unhappy—we remember her faults only to forgive them.' But if I live to be strong and healthy as I have been before, I fear my heart will harden, and my evil temper recover all its terrible power. It seems to me now as if I had been possessed by one of those fiends which we read of in the Bible, which tore and rent the bosom that they entered. It is not cast out—it only sleeps—and I fear—oh!—I dread its wakening."

"Oh, Mittie, only cry, 'Thou Son of David, have mercy on me—' only cry out, from the depths of a contrite spirit—and it will depart, though its name be legion."

"But I fear this contrition may be transitory. I do pray, I do cry out for mercy now, but to-morrow my heart may harden into stone. You, who are so perfect and pious, think it easy to be good, and so it is, on a sick bed—when gentle, watching eyes and stilly steps are round you, and the air you breathe is embalmed with blessings. With returning health the bosom strife will begin. Your thoughts will no longer centre on me. Helen will once more absorb your affections, and then the serpent envy will come gliding back, so cold and venomous, to coil itself in my heart."

"My child—there is room enough in the world, room enough in our hearts, and room enough in Heaven, for you and Helen too."

She spoke with solemnity, and she continued to speak soothingly and persuasively till the eyes of the invalid were closed in slumber, and then her thoughts rose in silent prayer for that sin-sick and life-weary soul.

Mittie never alluded to Clinton in her conversation with her mother. There was only one being to whom she now felt willing to breathe his name, and that was Arthur Hazleton. The first time she was alone with him, she asked the question that had long been hovering on her lips. She was sitting in an easy chair, supported by pillows, her head resting on her wasted hand. The reflection of the crimson curtains gave a glow to the chill whiteness of her face, and softened the gloom of her sable eyes. She looked earnestly at Arthur, who knew all that she wished to ask. The color mounted to his cheek. He could not frame a falsehood, and he feared to reveal the truth.

"Are there any tidings of him?" said she; "is he safe—or has his flight been discovered? But," continued she in a lower voice, "you need not speak. Your looks reveal the whole. He is again imprisoned."

Arthur bowed his head, glad to be spared the painful task of asserting the fact.

"And there is no hope of pardon or acquittal?" she asked.

"None. He must meet his doom. And, Mittie, sad as it is—it is just. Your own sense of rectitude and justice will in time sanction the decree. You may, you must pity him—but love, unsupported by esteem, must expire. You are mourning now over a bright illusion—a fallen idol—a deserted temple; but believe me, your mourning will change to joy. The illusion is dispelled, that truth may shine forth in all its splendor; the idol thrown down that the living God may be enthroned upon the altar; the temple deserted that it may be filled with the glory of the Lord."

"You are right, Arthur, in one thing—would to God you were in all. It is not love I now feel, but despair. It is dreadful to look forward to a cold, unloving existence. I shudder to think how young I am, and how long I may have yet to live."

"Yours is the natural language of disappointed youth. You have passed through a fiery ordeal. The sore and quivering heart shrinks from the contact even of sympathy. You fear the application of even Gilead's balm. You are weak and languid, and I will not weary you with discussion; but spring will soon be here; genial, rejoicing spring. You will revive with its flowers, and your spirit warble with its singing birds. Then we will walk abroad in the hush of twilight—and if you will promise to listen, I will preach you a daily sermon, with nature for my text and inspiration too."

"Ah! such sermons should be breathed to Helen only. She can understand and profit by them."

"There is room enough in God's temple for you and Helen too," replied Arthur. Mittie remembered the words of her step-mother, so similar, and was struck by the coincidence. Her own views seemed very selfish and narrow, by contrast.

The flowers of spring unfolded, and Mittie did indeed revive and bloom again, but it was as the lily, not the rose. The love tint of the latter had faded, never to blush again.

There was a subdued happiness in the household, which had long been a stranger there.

Louis, though his brow still wore the traces of remorse, was happy in the consciousness of errors forgiven, confidence restored, and good resolutions strengthened and confirmed. He devoted himself to his father's business with an industry and zeal more worthy of praise, because he was obliged to struggle with his natural inclinations. He believed it his father's wish to keep him with him, and he made it his law to obey him, thinking his future life too short for expiation. There was another object, for which he also thought life too short, and that was to secure the happiness of Alice—whom he loved with a purity and intensity that was deepened by her helplessness and almost infantine artlessness. He knew that her blindness was hopeless, but it seemed to him that he loved her the more for her blindness, her entire dependence on his care. It would be such a holy task to protect and cherish her, and to throw around her darkened life the illuminating influence of love.

She was still with them, and Mrs. Hazleton had been induced to leave the seclusion of the Parsonage, and become the guest of Mrs. Gleason. It must have been a strong motive that tempted her from the hallowed shades, which she had never quitted since her husband's death. Reader, can you conjecture what that motive was?

A very handsome new house, built in the cottage style, had been lately erected in the vicinity of Mr. Gleason's, under the superintendence of the young doctor, and rumor said that he was shortly to be married to Helen Gleason. Every one thought it was time for him to be married, if he ever intended to be, but many objected to her extreme youth. That, however, was the only objection urged, as Helen was a universal favorite, and Arthur Hazleton the idol of the town.