A broken line of the lay, murmured at intervals for a few minutes after the entire piece was concluded, as it were in soliloquy, indicated the sad spirit of the minstrel. She did not remain long at the window; in a little while the song ceased, and the light was withdrawn from the apartment. The musician had retired. "They say, Guy, that music can quiet the most violent spirit, and it seems to have had its influence upon you. Does she not sing like a mocking-bird?--is she not a sweet, a true creature? Why, man! so forward and furious but now, and now so lifeless! bestir ye! The night wanes." The person addressed started from his stupor, and, as if utterly unconscious of what had been going on, _ad interim_, actually replied to the speech of his companion made a little while prior to the appearance and music of the young girl, whose presence at that moment had most probably prevented strife and, possibly, bloodshed. He spoke as if the interruption had made only a momentary break in the sentence which he now concluded:-- "He lies at the point of my knife, under my hands, within my power, without chance of escape, and I am to be held back--kept from striking--kept from my revenge--and for what? There may be little gain in the matter--it may not bring money, and there may be some risk! If it be with you, Munro, to have neither love nor hate, but what you do, to do only for the profit and spoil that come of it, it is not so with me. I can both love and hate; though it be, as it has been, that I entertain the one feeling in vain, and am restrained from the enjoyment of the other." "You were born in a perverse time, and are querulous, for the sake of the noise it makes," rejoined his cool companion. "I do not desire to restrain your hands from this young man, but take your time for it. Let nothing be done to him while in this house. I will run, if I can help it, no more risk for your passions; and I must confess myself anxious, if the devil will let me, of stopping right short in the old life and beginning a new one. I have been bad enough, and done enough, to keep me at my prayers all the rest of my days, were I to live on to eternity." "This new spirit, I suppose, we owe to your visit to the last camp-meeting. You will exhort, doubtless, yourself, before long, if you keep this track. Why, what a prophet you will make among the crop-haired, Munro! what a brand from the burning!" "Look you, Guy, your sarcasm pleases me quite as little as it did the young fellow, who paid it back so much better than I can. Be wise, if you can, while you are wary; if your words continue to come from the same nest, they will beget something more than words, my good fellow." "True, and like enough, Munro; and why do you provoke me to say them?" replied Rivers, something more sedately. "You see me in a passion--you know that I have cause--for is not this cause enough--this vile scar on features, now hideous, that were once surely not unpleasing."