"_You_ speak your Creator's name! trampling upon His laws--His curse hanging over you! Oh! I entreat you, by a mother's prayers--for the sake of your old father, tottering upon the verge of the grave--in the name of your honorable and loving brother, not to expose your design! You shall not--you cannot go; the doors are locked--call for assistance from those who are without, and I will alarm the household. To-morrow your name will be trumpeted at the corner of every street. Ha! that cry! they have discovered all! Too late! too late! but no!--" She tore off the cloak and bonnet, and threw them into a corner, as Sarah rushed down the steps. "Mistress! Miss Ida! for the Lord's sake, come! Master is dying!" A cry from Josephine pierced their ears. Ida forgot her companion, but she reached the chamber with her. Writhing, convulsed, screaming, he was wrestling with the Destroyer; the disease had grappled his heart. Mrs. Read sank upon her knees, as blasted by a thunderbolt; Josephine shrieked in helpless dismay; Ida was wrought up to too high a pitch, to think of self. "Where is John?" she cried. "Here! run for Dr. Ballard! Mr. Read is _very_ ill! Call for Mr. Talbot as you come back. Fly!" He was down stairs while she was speaking. "Why, Miss Ida, the key is not here!" She ran for it, unlocked the door, and pushed him out. A man stood in the shade of the porch, whom John did not perceive, in his rapid egress; but he seized Ida's hand, as she would have shut him out. "Helen!" "Mrs. Read's _husband_ is dying, Mr. Ashlin!" "Good heavens!" The bolt had shot into its place, ere he could say more. All the accompaniments of the last agony, of which Ida had ever heard, read or conceived, were realized in this struggle;--the blackening features, drenched with sweat, the starting eye, the twitching muscles, the death-rattle,--the soul was tearing through the clay receptacle: yet for two hours the awful conflict was protracted. Morning! a sheet covered the rigid, motionless limbs and countenance, telling in death, of suffering; and there were solemn stoppings and stifled whispers through the house; and crape waved from the door, where the traitorous friend had waited, at night, for the dead man's wife.