as untrue to her
betrothed lover. The horror of the situation was too much for me; I
faltered as I left her room, her dainty, maidenly room, and actually
crouched against the wall like a guilty thing, as I heard the sound of
her voice singing some maddening strain in the parlors below. What
should I do? Appeal to her, or warn her father of the frightful peril in
which his honor and happiness stood? Alas, any appeal to her would be
useless. In the glare of this awful revelation I had come to a full
comprehension of her nature. But her father was a man; he could command
as well as entreat, could even force obedience if all other methods
failed. To him, then, must I go; but I had rather have gone to the rack.
He was so proud a man! Had owned to such undeviating trust in his
daughter's honor, as a Japha and his child! The blow would kill him; or
daze him so, he might better have been killed. My knees shook under me,
as I traversed the hall to his little study over the parlor, and when I
came to the door, I rather fell against it than knocked, so great was my
own anguish, and so deep my terror of his. He was a ready man and he
came to the door at once, but upon seeing me, drew back as if his eye
had fallen upon a phantom.

"'Hush!' said I, scarcely knowing what I uttered; and going in, I closed
the door and latched it firmly behind me. 'I have come,' said I in a
voice that made him start, 'to ask you to save your daughter. She is in
deadly peril; she--' a strain of her song came in at that moment from
the staircase. She was ascending to her room. He looked at me in a doubt
of my sanity.

"'Not physical peril,' I stammered, 'but _moral_. She loves madly,
unreasonably, and with a headlong passion that laughs at every obstacle,
a man whom neither you nor heaven can look upon with aught but
execration. She--'

"'Mrs. Hamlin!'--How well I remember his cool, calm voice, so deliberate
in his impressive moments, so deliberate now, when perhaps she was
donning hat and shawl for her elopement--'You are laboring under a great
mistake. Instead of execrating Mr. Holt, I admire him most profoundly.
Since the time has come for me to give up my daughter, I know of no one
to whom I would rather surrender her.'

"'But Mr. Holt is not the man,' I cried, half wild in my fear and
desperation. 'Do you remember the gentleman who came with him on his
last visit? He called him his brother, and he is I believe, but--'

"The way he turned his gr