Louis led Mittie to a chair, then lighting a candle, he knelt down and gathered together the still smoking brands. A bright fire soon blazed on the hearth, and illuminated the apartment. "Now for the wine," said he. "He is gone, Louis," said she, laying her hand on his arm. "He is fled. I released him. Was it not noble in me, when he loves Helen, and he a thief, too?" Louis thought she spoke very strangely, and he looked earnestly at her glittering eyes. "I am glad of it!" he exclaimed--"he is a villain, but I am glad he is escaped. But you, Mittie--you should not have done this. How could you do it? Did Arthur Hazleton help you?" "Oh, no! I did it very easily--I gave him your cloak and cap. You must not be angry, you shall have new ones. They fitted him very nicely. He would run faster, if my heart-strings did not get tangled round his feet, all bleeding, too. Don't you remember, Miss Thusa told you about it, long ago?" "My God, Mittie! what makes you talk in that way? Don't talk so. Don't look so. For Heaven's sake, don't look so wild." "I can't help it, Louis," said she, pressing her hands on the top of her head, "I feel so strange here. I do believe I'm mad." She was indeed delirious. The fever which for many days had been burning in her veins, now lighted its flames in her brain, and raged for more than a week with increasing violence. She did not know, while she lay tossing in delirious agony, that the fugitive, Clinton, had been overtaken, and brought back in chains to a more hopeless, because doubly guarded captivity. Justice triumphed over love. He who sows the wind, must expect to reap the whirlwind. CHAPTER XIV. "High minds of native pride and force, Most deeply feel thy pangs, remorse."--_Scott._ "Lord, at Thy feet ashamed I lie, Upward I dare not look-- Pardon my sins before I die, And blot them from Thy book."--_Hymn._ When Mittie awoke from the wild dream of delirium, she was weak as a new-born infant. For a few moments she imagined herself the inhabitant of another world. The deep quietude of the apartment, its soft, subdued, slumberous light, the still, watching figures seated by her bedside, formed so strong a contrast to the gloomy cell, with its chill, damp air, and glimmering lamp--its rough keeper and agitated inmate--that cell which, it appeared to her, she had just quitted. Two fair young forms, with arms interlaced, and heads inclined towards each other, the one with locks of rippling gold, the other of soft, wavy brown, seemed watching angels to her unclosing eyes. She felt a soft pressure on her faintly throbbing pulse, and knew that on the other side, opposite the watching angels, a manly figure was bending over her. She could not turn her head to gaze upon it, but there was a benignity in its presence which soothed and comforted her. Other forms were there also, but they faded away in a soft, hazy atmosphere, and her drooping eye-lids again closed.