a tender mother's heart, and shut the light from her spirit
forever! And, oh, what a fearful thing to die with this consciousness
burning into the soul like the sting of scorpions!

None of the horrid visions that visited his fevered brain in the hours of
delirium were half so painful as the anguished expression on that mother's
face. It sunk to the great deep of the guilty son's soul; and, with that
pale face bending over him, his last glimpse of earth, his sight paled and
his spirit left its clay tenement for eternity. What a lesson in his life
and death!

CHAPTER XXII.

THE DISGUISED VILLAINS MEET HADLEY--THE RESULT--CONCLUSION.

As already stated, Bill and Dick had disguised themselves in the garb of
gentlemen, and with certain disfigurements of countenance which completely
hid their features and rendered it impossible to identify them, either in
their character of villainous murderers, or as the abductors, on a former
occasion, of their present captive. When Bill first discovered Eveline in
the woods, he was about to make known to her that he and Dick were the
friends who had promised to liberate her, but on second thought he deemed
it best to keep up the disguise, and learn, if possible, whether she had
any knowledge of his real intentions and their ultimate destination. Hence
her inability to trace the voice, which sounded so familiar, to the wily
villain who had enticed her to meet Hadley for the purpose of placing her
in Duffel's power.

Bill endeavored by every indirect means, not calculated to excite
suspicion, to draw from Eveline the facts of her situation, with the view
of informing himself of her sentiments toward the friends who had promised
her freedom; but she kept her own counsels, and completely baffled him in
his object. He knew that the present course of deception could not long be
persisted in, as, at furthest, on the morrow a development of facts must
take place, or, at least, a continued persistence in the disguise as to
destination would be impossible. How to make himself known in his real
character was a matter which puzzled him not a little; for he well knew
from her manners and from the resistance she had made to Duffel, that it
would be no easy task to force her all the way to Virginia. If he could
only manage to keep up appearances until a certain point was gained, which
he hoped to reach by night on the second day, he felt pretty sure of final
success; for he would then be on