o attend.

"I turned: It is forbidden to describe what I saw: Words, indeed, would
be wanting to the task. The lineaments of that being, whose veil was now
lifted, and whose visage beamed upon my sight, no hues of pencil or of
language can pourtray.

"As it spoke, the accents thrilled to my heart. "Thy prayers are heard.
In proof of thy faith, render me thy wife. This is the victim I chuse.
Call her hither, and here let her fall."--The sound, and visage, and
light vanished at once.

"What demand was this? The blood of Catharine was to be shed! My wife
was to perish by my hand! I sought opportunity to attest my virtue.
Little did I expect that a proof like this would have been demanded.

"My wife! I exclaimed: O God! substitute some other victim. Make me
not the butcher of my wife. My own blood is cheap. This will I pour
out before thee with a willing heart; but spare, I beseech thee, this
precious life, or commission some other than her husband to perform the
bloody deed.

"In vain. The conditions were prescribed; the decree had gone forth, and
nothing remained but to execute it. I rushed out of the house and across
the intermediate fields, and stopped not till I entered my own parlour.
"My wife had remained here during my absence, in anxious expectation of
my return with some tidings of her sister. I had none to communicate.
For a time, I was breathless with my speed: This, and the tremors
that shook my frame, and the wildness of my looks, alarmed her. She
immediately suspected some disaster to have happened to her friend, and
her own speech was as much overpowered by emotion as mine.

"She was silent, but her looks manifested her impatience to hear what I
had to communicate. I spoke, but with so much precipitation as scarcely
to be understood; catching her, at the same time, by the arm, and
forcibly pulling her from her seat.

"Come along with me: fly: waste not a moment: time will be lost, and the
deed will be omitted. Tarry not; question not; but fly with me!

"This deportment added afresh to her alarms. Her eyes pursued mine, and
she said, "What is the matter? For God's sake what is the matter? Where
would you have me go?"

"My eyes were fixed upon her countenance while she spoke. I thought
upon her virtues; I viewed her as the mother of my babes: as my wife:
I recalled the purpose for which I thus urged her attendance. My heart
faltered, and I saw that I must rouse to this work all my faculties. The
dan