Then once more rang the voice through the poor, confused, and tortured brain; "I will visit the sins of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation!" And Primrose cried in agony; "I dare not do it! Oh, Percival, my love, my love, I dare not marry you! Oh, why have I ever lived to bring you such sorrow, and to kill my mother with grief? Why does God permit such misery in His beautiful world? My heart is breaking! Oh, God, my God, where art Thou? All is darkness--I cannot see Thy face!" and rushing to the edge of the dark pool, lying still and black in the awful midnight silence, she fell on her knees upon its brink, and gazed with strangely fixed, stony eyes into its depths. "Oh, love, my love!" she murmured, pressing her hands upon her aching brow; "I would give my all for thee, to save thee one moment's pain--and I must wring thy heart with bitter misery--that heart which loves me so truly! Nay, I cannot do it! I will risk all--my very life itself for thy sake!" "Thy life, perchance," laughed a hideous, mocking voice in her ear, "but not thy soul! Wilt risk _that_ for thy love? Nay, thou darest not!" And it seemed as though a hundred scoffing voices joined in the Evil One's taunting cry. "Yes, my soul--all that is mine I will give for thee, beloved!" cried the heart-broken girl aloud in desperation. "Apart from thee I have no soul--none. I dare all for thee! Yes, here will I plunge and be at rest. There is no place for me longer in this bright world, which to-morrow's sun will gladden! I may not marry my love, and I cannot live without him! Oh, God, forgive me this sin, for my heart is breaking! Here only, in these quiet waters, can I find rest." Yet lower she knelt over the black abyss, till her long golden tresses touched the water, and floated out in a glittering stream upon its dark surface. Then suddenly she shrank back in horror. "How dark and dreadful a grave!" she muttered, "and I so young to die! But a few short hours ago there was no happier girl in all the world than I. Oh, what has happened? It is but some evil dream, from which I shall presently awake, and all will be well." And as she recoiled a moment from the black gulf, the fiend-like voices again whispered mockingly, exultantly, in her ear, "She dare not--she dare not!" "Yes, I dare all!" her agonised spirit cried in passionate answer; "I dare all but to live without thee, Percival! Ah, it is all truth, dreadful truth, and there is no escape--none. No happy marriage--no blessed, holy home for me in the valley! Percival must dwell there alone, while I sleep beneath these black waters! Yes, I will make the fatal plunge. Farewell, my true love, and pray ever that God may forgive a poor maiden whose brain is turned with misery!" And once more the girl rushed wildly to the brink--then stood transfixed at the sudden wild cry, "Shanno, Shanno!" which rent the still night air. From rock to