er kiss
the polluted lips of woman as long as she has breath in her body."

"But Caterine Collins has taken away my child, and has not returned with
it."

"No, nor ever will," replied the outlaw. "She was the instrument of
your destroyer. But I wish you to be consoled, Grace. Do you see that
middogue? It is red with blood. Now listen. I have avenged you; that
middogue was reddened in the heart of the villain that wrought your
ruin. As far as man can be, I am now satisfied."

"My child!" she faintly said; "my child! where is it?"

Her words were scarcely audible. She closed her eyes and was silent. The
outlaw looked closely into her countenance, and perceived at once that
death was there. He felt her pulse, her heart, but all was still.

[Illustration: PAGE 774-- Kiss you for the sake of our early love]

"Now," said he, "the penalty you have paid for your crime has taken away
the pollution from your lips, and I will kiss you for the sake of our
early love."

He then kissed her, and rained showers of tears over her now unconscious
features. The two funerals took place upon the same day; and, what was
still more particular, they were buried in the same churchyard. Their
unhappy fates were similar in more than one point. The selfish and
inhuman seducer of each became the victim of his crime; one by the just
and righteous vengeance of a heart-broken and indignant father, and
the other by the middogue of the brave and noble-minded outlaw. Who the
murderer of Harry Woodward, or rather the avenger of Grace Davoren,
was, never became known. The only ears to which the outlaw revealed the
secret were closed, and her tongue silent for ever.

The body of Woodward was found the next morning lifeless upon the
moors; and when death loosened the tongues of the people, and when the
melancholy fate of Grace Davoren became known, there was one individual
who knew perfectly well, from moral conviction, who the avenger of her
ruin was.

"Uncle," said Miss Riddle, while talking with him on the subject, "I
feel who the avenger of the unfortunate and beautiful Grace Davoren is."

"And who is he, my dear niece?"

"It shall never escape my lips, my lord and uncle."

"Egad, talking of escapes, I think you have had a very narrow one
yourself, in escaping from that scoundrel of the Evil Eye."

"I thank God for it," she replied, and this closed their conversation.

There is little now to be added to our narrative. We need scarcely
as