re fixed pleadingly upon his own. The outlaw hesitated
for a moment before he replied.

"I propose, Ellen, to do for you all that may be necessary--to provide
you with additional comforts, and carry you to a place of additional
security, where you shall live to yourself, and have good attendance."

"This is kind--this is much, Guy; but not much more than you have been
accustomed to do for me. That which I seek from you now is something
more than this; promise me that it shall be as I say."

"If it breaks not into my arrangements--if it makes me not go aside from
my path, I will certainly do it, Ellen. Speak, therefore; what is it I
can do for you?"

"It will interfere with none of your arrangements, Guy, I am sure; it
can not take you from your path, for you could not have provided for
that of which you knew not. I have your pledge, therefore--have I not?"

"You have," was the reply, while the manner of Rivers was tinctured with
something like curiosity.

"That is kind--that is as you ought to be. Hear me now, then," and her
voice sunk into a whisper, as if she feared the utterance of her own
words; "take your knife, Guy--pause not, do it quickly, lest I fear and
tremble--strike it deep into the bosom of the poor Ellen, and lay her
beside the cold parent, whose counsels she despised, and all of whose
predictions are now come true. Strike--strike quickly, Guy Rivers; I
have your promise--you can not recede; if you have honor, if you have
truth, you must do as I ask. Give me death--give me peace."

"Foolish girl, would you trifle with me--would you have me spurn and
hate you? Beware!"

The outlaw well knew the yielding and sensitive material out of which
his victim had been made. His stern rebuke was well calculated to effect
in her bosom that revulsion of feeling which he knew would follow any
threat of a withdrawal, even of the lingering and frail fibres of that
affection, few and feeble as they were, which he might have once
persuaded her to believe had bound him to her. The consequence was
immediate, and her subdued tone and resigned action evinced the now
entire supremacy of her natural temperament.

"Oh, forgive me, Guy, I know not what I ask or what I do. I am so worn
and weary, and my head is so heavy, that I think it were far better if I
were in my grave with the cold frame whom we shall soon put there. Heed
not what I say--I am sad and sick, and have not the spirit of reason, or
a healthy will to direc