eed."

A deep groan burst from the vast chest of Wacousta; but, for a moment,
he answered not. At length he observed, pointing at the same time with
his finger towards the cloudless vault above their heads,--"Do you
behold yon blue sky, Clara de Haldimar?"

"I do;--what mean you?" demanded the trembling girl, in whom a
momentary hope had been excited by the subdued manner of the savage.

"Nothing," he coolly rejoined; "only that were your mother to appear
there at this moment, clad in all the attributes ascribed to angels,
her prayer would not alter the destiny that awaits you. Nay, nay; look
not thus sorrowfully," he pursued, as, in despite of her efforts to
prevent him, he imprinted a burning kiss upon her lips. "Even thus was
I once wont to linger on the lips of your mother; but hers ever pouted
to be pressed by mine; and not with tears, but with sunniest smiles,
did she court them." He paused; bent his head over the face of the
shuddering girl; and gazing fixedly for a few minutes on her
countenance, while he pressed her struggling form more closely to his
own, exultingly pursued, as if to himself,--"Even as her mother was, so
is she. Ye powers of hell! who would have ever thought a time would
come when both my vengeance and my love would be gratified to the
utmost? How strange it never should have occurred to me he had a
daughter!"

"What mean you, fierce, unpitying man?" exclaimed the terrified Clara,
to whom a full sense of the horror of her position had lent unusual
energy of character. "Surely you will not detain a poor defenceless
woman in your hands,--the child of her you say you have loved. But it
is false!--you never knew her, or you would not now reject my prayer."

"Never knew her!" fiercely repeated Wacousta. Again he paused. "Would I
had never known her! and I should not now be the outcast wretch I am,"
he added, slowly and impressively. Then once more elevating his
voice,--"Clara de Haldimar, I have loved your mother as man never loved
woman; and I have hated your father" (grinding his teeth with fury as
he spoke) "as man never hated man. That love, that hatred are
unquenched--unquenchable. Before me I see at once the image of her who,
even in death, has lived enshrined in my heart, and the child of him
who is my bitterest foe. Clara de Haldimar, do you understand me now?"

"Almighty Providence! is there no one to save me?--can nothing touch
your stubborn heart?" exclaimed the affrighted girl; an