"Never! On you alone I depend. I will not ask a favor of man, to save my soul from perdition. Girl! have you no power over the wealth that must be rusting in your coffers? Are you not trusted with the key to your household treasures?" "Do you think I would take his gold clandestinely?" I asked, glowing with indignation, and recoiling from the expression of his eager, burning eye. We were walking slowly during this exciting conversation; and, cold as it was, the moisture gathered on my brow. "Here is a purse, given me for a holier purpose. Take it, and let me go." "Thank you,--bless you, my child! but this will only relieve present necessity. It will not carry me in safety to distant climes. Bless you! but take it back, take it back. I can only meet my doom!" "I _will_ go to my husband!" I exclaimed with sudden resolution; "I _will_ tell him all, and he, and he alone shall aid you. I will not wrong him by acting without his knowledge. You have no right to endanger my life-long peace. You have destroyed my mother; must her child too be sacrificed?" "I see there is but one path of escape," he cried, snatching a pistol from his breast, and turning the muzzle to his heart. "Fool, dolt, idiot that I am! I dreamed of salvation from a daughter's hand, but I have forfeited a father's name, a father's affection. Gabriella, you might save me, but I blame you not. Do not curse me, though I fill a felon's grave;--better that than the dungeon--the scaffold." "What would you do?" I whispered hoarsely, seizing his arm with spasmodic grasp. "Die, before I am betrayed." "I will not betray you; what sum will suffice for your emergency? Name it." "As many thousands as there are hundreds there," pointing to the purse. "Good heavens!" "Gabriella, you must have jewels worth a prince's ransom; you had diamonds last night on your neck and arms that would redeem your father's life. Each gem is but a drop of water in the deep sea of _his_ riches. His uncle was a modern Cr[oe]sus, and he, his sole heir." "How know you this?" I asked. "Every one knows it. The rich are the cities on the hill-tops, seen afar off. You hesitate,--you tremble. Keep your diamonds,--but remember they will eat like burning coals into your flesh." Fierce and deadly passions gleamed from his eye. He clenched the pistol so tight that his nails turned of a purplish blue.