cried Mrs. Sheppard. "Oh! if this is the case, do not
stay an instant. Fly! fly!"

"As soon as I can do so with safety, I will return, or send to you,"
said Jack.

"Do not endanger yourself on my account," rejoined his mother. "I am
quite easy now; receive my blessing, my dear son; and if we never meet
again, rest assured my last prayer shall be for you."

"Do not talk thus, dear mother," returned Jack, gazing anxiously at her
pale countenance, "or I shall not be able to quit you. You must live for
me."

"I will try to do so," replied the widow, forcing a smile. "One last
embrace. I need not counsel you to avoid those fatal courses which have
placed you in such fearful jeopardy."

"You need not," replied Jack, in a tone of the deepest compunction.
"And, oh! forgive me, though I can never forgive myself, for the misery
I have caused you."

"Forgive you!" echoed his mother, with a look radiant with delight. "I
have nothing to forgive. Ah!" she screamed, with a sudden change of
manner; and pointing to the window, which Jack had left open, and at
which a dark figure was standing, "there is Jonathan Wild!"

"Betrayed!" exclaimed Jack, glancing in the same direction. "The
door!--the door!--death!" he added, as he tried the handle, "it is
locked--and I am unarmed. Madman that I am to be so!"

"Help!" shrieked Mrs. Sheppard.

"Be silent," said Jonathan, striding deliberately into the room; "these
cries will avail you nothing. Whoever answers them must assist me to
capture your son. Be silent, I say, if you value his safety."

Awed by Jonathan's manner, Mrs. Sheppard repressed the scream that rose
to her lips, and both mother and son gazed with apprehension at the
heavy figure of the thief-taker, which, viewed in the twilight, seemed
dilated to twice its natural size, and appeared almost to block up the
window. In addition to his customary arms, Jonathan carried a bludgeon
with a large heavy knob, suspended from his wrist by a loop; a favourite
weapon, which he always took with him on dangerous expeditions, and
which, if any information had been requisite, would have told Sheppard
that the present was one of them.

"Well, Jack," he said, after a pause, "are you disposed to go back
quietly with me?"

"You'll ascertain that when you attempt to touch me," rejoined Sheppard,
resolutely.

"My janizaries are within call," returned Wild. "I'm armed; you are
not."

"It matters not. You shall not take me alive."

"S