get to sea, there are two cruisers on the look-out for any suspicious
sail.

"And what if he were to surrender and stand his trial," said Kate,
boldly.

Hemsworth shook his head sorrowfully, but never spoke. "What object
can it be with any Government to hunt down a rash, inexperienced youth,
whose unguarded boldness has led him to ruin? On whom would such an
example tell, or where would the lesson spread terror, save beneath that
old roof yonder, where sorrows are rife enough already?"

"The correspondence with France--that's his danger. The intercourse with
the disturbed party at home might be palliated by his youth--the foreign
conspiracy admits of little apology." "And what evidence have they of
this?"

"Alas! but too much--the table of the Privy Council was actually covered
with copies of letters and documents--some, written by himself--almost
all, referring to him as a confidential and trusty agent of the cause.
This cannot be forgiven him! When I heard a member of the Council say,
'Jackson's blood is dried up already,' I guessed the dreadful result of
this young man's capture."

Kate shuddered at these words, which were uttered in a faint tone,
tremulous through emotion. "Oh, God," she cried, "do not let this
calamity fall upon us. Poverty, destitution, banishment, anything, save
the death of a felon!"

Hemsworth pressed his handkerchief to his eyes, and looked away, as the
young girl, with upturned face, muttered a brief but fervent prayer to
heaven.

"But you, so gifted and experienced in the world's ways," cried she,
turning on him a glance of imploring meaning--"can you not think of
anything? Is there no means, however difficult and dangerous, by which
he might be saved? Could not the honor of an ancient house plead for
him? Is there no pledge for the future could avail him."

"There is but one such pledge--and that"--here he stopped and blushed
deeply, and then, as if by an effort, resumed--"Do not, I beseech you,
tempt me to utter what, if once spoken, decides the destiny of my life?"

He ceased, and she bent on him a look of wondering astonishment. She
thought she had not heard him aright, and amid her fears of some vague
kind, a faint hope struggled, that a chance of saving Mark yet remained.
Perhaps, the mere expression of doubt her features assumed, was
more chilling than even a look of displeasure, for Hemsworth's self
possession, for several minutes, seemed to have deserted him; when, at