"Impossible!-you are mad. The very fact of your having known and befriended me in this clandestine way, will incense your friends. I shall be arrested, and you will accuse yourself for life as my destroyer. No, dear girl," he continued, in a softer yet not less eager tone, as he placed his arm round her, "why not yield to the impulses of your own high, disinterested spirit, and fly with me, as I have so often implored you? Be mine first in the sight of man and heaven, and then plead for me afterwards with your father?" "I dare not--it would break his heart--my own is breaking fast already," and she trembled from head to foot in her attempts to subdue the sobbing of her bosom. "And this is the energy, the firm-mindedness, you have so often boasted of! You have it in your power this instant to raise me to happiness, wealth, and safety; and, forgetful it was the charm you threw across my path which has kept me near you until the bloodhounds have run me to bay, you doom me to despair and death. I see _you_ have made your decision--hear _mine_. Life since I knew you has no value in my eyes if unshared by you. Exile from you would be worse than death. Here, then, I still await the pursuers. Never will I leave, with life, the mountains that surround you." "Oh--no--no! Heaven forbid your blood should be shed on my account! Fly, I implore you, before it is too late." "Never! I will sell my life dearly, but my grave at least shall be where you can sometimes visit it and remember"---- "Unkind, dark, inhuman man! was it _all_ my fault? My poor father, what will he say? give me at least a day or two to think"---- "It is now of no use, the night has half past, my doom is fixed." "No! again no! you will drive me mad! Oh fly, fly, but this once, and I will, at least I promise--I must see him--my father--before--fly now and return, and I will do all you desire--only, only, save your life at once." The man replied not for some minutes, he then resumed--"I have here that copy of the Gospels you gave me--will you swear on that gift that when we next meet you will be prepared to share life, be it happiness or horror, with me?" "Yes, I do--I will--any thing; but fly and save yourself." "Swear then," he said, as with one arm around her he prepared with the other to place the sacred Book upon her lips, when at that very moment an aspersion of cold water was dashed with such ample profusion in the impassioned faces of the pair as to cause them to spring asunder with a start that had very nearly as much the character of discomfort as alarm. "Hell and"----half-exclaimed the man, as he tore open his coat and grasped one of several pistols it now appeared he was armed with.