While he sat gazing on the pallet, watching for the first motion that would indicate the dispersion of slumber, he heard a cough issuing from it, which his practiced ear at once recognized as proceeding from a woman's lungs. A suspicion of the truth flashed into his mind. He rose, bent over the couch, and taking hold of the covering, endeavored to draw it back from the face it shrouded. He could see the white hands that clinched it, and a tress of long, waving hair, loosened by the motion, floated on his sight. "Mittie--Mittie Gleason!" he exclaimed, bending on one knee, and trying to raise her--"how came you here? Yet, why do I ask? I know but too well--Clinton has escaped--and you--" "_I am here!_" she cried, starting to her feet, and shaking back her hair, which fell in a sable mantle over her shoulders, flowing far below the waist. "I am here. What do you wish of me? I am not prepared to receive company just yet," she added, deridingly; "my room is rather unfurnished." She looked so wild and unnatural, her tone was so mocking, her glance so defying, Arthur began to fear that her reason was disordered. Fever was burning on her cheeks, and it might be the fire of delirium that sparkled in her eyes. He took her hand very gently, and tried to count the beatings of her pulse, but she snatched it from him with violence, and commanded him to leave her. "This is my sanctuary," she cried. "You have no right to intrude into it. Begone!--I will be alone." "Mittie, I will not leave you here--you must return with me to your father's house. Think of the obloquy you may incur by remaining. Come, before another enters." "If I go, _you_ will be suspected of releasing the prisoner, and suffer the penalty due for such an act. No, no, I have braved all consequences, and I dare to meet them." "Then I leave you to inform the jailer of the flight of the prisoner. It is my duty." "You will not do so mean and unmanly a deed!" springing between him and the door, and pressing her back against it. "You will not basely inform of him whom a young girl has had the courage to release. _You_--a man, will not do it. _Will you?_" "An act of justice is never base or cowardly. Clinton is a convicted thief, and deserves the doom impending over such transgressors. He is an unprincipled and profligate young man, and unworthy the love of a pure-hearted woman. He has tempted your brother from the paths of virtue, repaid your confidence with the coldest treachery, violated the laws of God and man, and yet, unparalleled infatuation--you love him still, and expose yourself to slander and disgrace for his sake." He spoke sternly, commandingly. He had tried reason and persuasion, he now spoke with authority, but it was equally in vain. "Who told you that I love him?" she repeated. "'Tis false. I hate him. I hate him!" she again repeated, but her lips quivered, and her voice choked.