e crime-stained soul of the guilty
listener, who exulted in the success of his scheme, and felt additional
assurance of ultimately triumphing in all his undertakings. But when the
spirit-bowed father, in his hopeless agony, called down the curse upon the
head of the author of the wrong, and appealed to Heaven for vengeance, the
villain cowered as if truly smitten with a bolt; and the bare thought that
the fate prayed for _might_ be his, sent a cold chill to his heart and
forced out great drops of perspiration on his brow. He trembled in every
limb, like one in an ague fit, and it was some seconds before he could
regain command of his faculties. At last he felt something like himself
again, and not wishing to hear anything more of the same kind, he knocked
at the door, and the next minute stood face to face with Mr. Mandeville.
Black as his corrupt heart had become, he could not look unmoved upon that
countenance, and behold the ravages made in a short hour by the pains of
soul _he_ had inflicted.

"Are you sick, Mr. Mandeville?" was his first inquiry.

"No, sir; but worse, much worse than sick."

"Indeed! How is that?"

"Eveline is gone!"

"Gone?"

"Yes, gone forever!"

"What!" and the miscreant evinced the utmost surprise and astonishment.
"You do not mean to say she is dead?"

"No, no! Would to God she was! I would a thousand times rather have
followed her to the grave! But read, read, and know for yourself what has
happened." Saying which, he placed the letters in the hypocrite's hands,
and then, while he was reading them, buried his face in his own hands, and
sat in mute but agonized grief.

Duffel read the letters with secret delight, repeating to himself at every
particular place where it suited him best, "Glorious!" and at the close of
all, "I must reward Bill for this. He's a perfect gem of a devil for such
work."

But to Mandeville, in well-feigned amazement, he exclaimed:

"Charles Hadley!"

"Yes," said the afflicted parent, lifting his bowed head, "of all the
world, _him_! a criminal and vagabond, who had fled from justice to hide
himself from the face of man! Oh, my God! to think that she would forsake
home, friends, a good name, and trample upon a parent's love for such a
villain!"

"Perhaps it is not yet too late to save her?" suggested Duffel.

"How? what?" ejaculated the other, catching at the words as a drowning man
would at a straw.

"I say it may be possible that the marriage-rites