'My dear'--Madam took my hand--'his time of revenge is come. He says that he has the life of the man whom you love in his own hands; and he will, he swears, break his head for him, and so keep the promise made to you by tying the rope round his neck. My dear, Benjamin has always been stubborn and obstinate from his birth. Stubborn and obstinate was he as a boy; stubborn and obstinate is he now. He cares for nobody in the world except himself; he has no heart; he has no tenderness; he has no scruples; if he wants a thing, he will trample on all the world to get it, and break all the laws of God. I know what manner of life he leads. He is the friend and companion of the dreadful Judge who goeth about like a raging lion. Every night do they drink together until they are speechless and cannot stand. Their delight it is to drink, and smoke tobacco, with unseemly jests and ribald songs which would disgrace the playhouse or the country fair. Oh! 'tis the life of a hog that he delights in! Yet, for all that, he is, like his noble friend, full of ambition. Nothing will do but he must rise in the world. Therefore, he works hard at his profession--and'---- 'Madam--the condition!--what is the condition? For Heaven's sake tell me quickly! Is it--is it!--oh! no--no--no! Anything but that!' 'My child--my daughter'--she laid her hand upon my head. 'It is that condition--that, and none other. Oh! my dear, it is laid upon thee to save us!--it is to be thy work alone--and by such a sacrifice as, I think, no woman ever yet had to make! Nay, perhaps it is better not to make it, after all. Let all die together, and let us live out our allotted lives in sorrow. I thought of it all night, and it seemed better so--better even that thou wert lying in thy grave. His condition! Oh! he must be a devil thus to barter for the lives of his grandfather and his cousins--no human being, surely, would do such a thing: the condition, my dear, is that thou must marry him--now: this very morning--and this once done, he will at once take such steps--I know not what they may be, but I take it that his friend the Judge will grant him the favour--such steps, I say, as will release unto us all our prisoners.' At first I made no answer. 'If not,' she added after a while, 'they shall all be surely hanged.' I remained silent. It is not easy at such a moment to collect one's thoughts and understand what things mean. I asked her presently if there was no other way. 'None,' she said: 'there was no other way.' 'What shall I do? What shall I do?' I asked. 'God, it seems, hath granted my daily prayer; but how? Oh! what shall I do?' 'Think of what thou hast in thy power.' 'But to marry him--to marry Benjamin--oh! to marry him! How should I live? How should I look the world in the face?'