s no protector, and may be doomed to the
control of one who would make a hell on earth for all under his
influence. He has made a hell of it for me."

"Who is he? whom do you mean?"

"You should know him well enough by this time, for he has sought your
life often enough already--who should I mean, if not Guy Rivers?"

"And how is she at the mercy of this wretch?"

The landlord continued as if he had not heard the inquiry:

"Well, as I say, I know not how long I shall be able to take care of and
provide for that poor girl, whose wish has prompted me this night to
what I have undertaken. She was my brother's child, Mr. Colleton, and a
noble creature she is. If I live, sir, she will have to become the wife
of Rivers; and, though I love her as my own--as I have never loved my
own--yet she must abide the sacrifice from which, _while I live_, there
is no escape. But something tells me, sir, I have not long to live. I
have a notion which makes me gloomy, and which has troubled me ever
since you have been in prison. One dream comes to me every
night--whenever I sleep--and I wake, all over perspiration, and with a
terror I'm ashamed of. In this dream I see my brother always, and always
with the same expression. He looks at me long and mournfully, and his
finger is uplifted, as if in warning. I hear no word from his lips, but
they are in motion as if he spoke, and then he walks slowly away. Thus,
for several nights, has my mind been haunted, and I'm sure it is not for
nothing. It warns me that the time is not very far distant when I shall
receive the wages of a life like mine--the wages of sin--the death,
perhaps--who knows?--the death of the felon!"

"These are fearful fancies, indeed, Mr. Munro; and, whether we think on
them or not, will have their influence over the strongest-minded of us
all: but the thoughts which they occasion to your mind, while they must
be painful enough, may be the most useful, if they awaken regret of the
past, and incite to amendment in the future. Without regarding them as
the presentiments of death, or of any fearful change, I look upon them
only as the result of your own calm reflections upon the unprofitable
nature of vice; its extreme unproductiveness in the end, however
enticing in the beginning; and the painful privations of human sympathy
and society, which are the inevitable consequences of its indulgence.
These fancies are the sleepless thoughts, the fruit of an active memory,
which, a