over, seized the jagged edges of the ice, which she had broken that
very day, and tearing it away from the sides, hastened back, and up to
the chamber of death, with her prize in her bleeding hands. Stripping
a case from a pillow, she threw in the ice--pounded it with the
tongs--shook it together, and lifting up her uncle's insensible head,
laid the icy pillow under it, and gathered the ends over his forehead,
as well as she could. Then she chafed his hands, exclaiming all the
time, "Merciful Jesus, pity him! Merciful Jesus, help me, and
strengthen me!" But his breathing became more and more difficult, and
his limbs began to be agitated with horrible convulsions. A sudden
thought suggested itself. She untied her silk apron, tore off the
strings--ripped up the sleeve of Mr. Stillinghast's shirt, and wound
the ribbon tightly around his arm above the elbow; and while waiting
for the vein to swell, she took a small penknife from her pocket, and
opened the blade--it was thin, keen, and pointed. She had found it
among her father's papers years ago, and kept it about her to scrape
the points of her ivory knitting-needles. In another moment, invoking
the aid of Heaven, she had made an incision in the vein. A few black
drops of blood trickled down--then more; then fast and faster flowed
the dark stream over her dress, on the floor, for she could not
move--her strength was ebbing away. Presently the brain of the
stricken man, relieved of the pressure on it, began to resume its
functions; the spasms and convulsions ceased, and a low moan escaped
his lips. At that moment the watchman, accompanied by a physician,
entered the room, and May remembered nothing more.

CHAPTER XII.

REPENTANCE.

When May recovered, she looked around her with an alarmed and
bewildered feeling. The darkened, tossed-up room; the stranger
watching beside her; the pale, silent form on the bed, so motionless
that the bed-clothes had settled around it like a winding-sheet, were
all so much like the continuation of a dreadful dream, that she
shuddered, and lifted herself up on her elbow.

"You are better?" inquired a kind voice.

"Have I been ill?" she asked.

"Not ill, exactly," replied the doctor; "you fainted just as I came in
with the watchman to your assistance." Then she remembered it all.

"How is my uncle now, sir?" said May, sitting up, and with a modest
blush gathering up the masses of dark hair which had fallen from her
com