Mittie lay for some time without speaking, then lifting her melancholy black eyes, once so haughty and brilliant, she said-- "I will tell you why I wish to die. I am now humbled and subdued--conscious and ashamed of my errors, grateful for your unexampled goodness. If I die now, you will shed some tears over my grave, and perhaps say, 'Poor girl! she was so young, and so unhappy--we remember her faults only to forgive them.' But if I live to be strong and healthy as I have been before, I fear my heart will harden, and my evil temper recover all its terrible power. It seems to me now as if I had been possessed by one of those fiends which we read of in the Bible, which tore and rent the bosom that they entered. It is not cast out--it only sleeps--and I fear--oh!--I dread its wakening." "Oh, Mittie, only cry, 'Thou Son of David, have mercy on me--' only cry out, from the depths of a contrite spirit--and it will depart, though its name be legion." "But I fear this contrition may be transitory. I do pray, I do cry out for mercy now, but to-morrow my heart may harden into stone. You, who are so perfect and pious, think it easy to be good, and so it is, on a sick bed--when gentle, watching eyes and stilly steps are round you, and the air you breathe is embalmed with blessings. With returning health the bosom strife will begin. Your thoughts will no longer centre on me. Helen will once more absorb your affections, and then the serpent envy will come gliding back, so cold and venomous, to coil itself in my heart." "My child--there is room enough in the world, room enough in our hearts, and room enough in Heaven, for you and Helen too." She spoke with solemnity, and she continued to speak soothingly and persuasively till the eyes of the invalid were closed in slumber, and then her thoughts rose in silent prayer for that sin-sick and life-weary soul. Mittie never alluded to Clinton in her conversation with her mother. There was only one being to whom she now felt willing to breathe his name, and that was Arthur Hazleton. The first time she was alone with him, she asked the question that had long been hovering on her lips. She was sitting in an easy chair, supported by pillows, her head resting on her wasted hand. The reflection of the crimson curtains gave a glow to the chill whiteness of her face, and softened the gloom of her sable eyes. She looked earnestly at Arthur, who knew all that she wished to ask. The color mounted to his cheek. He could not frame a falsehood, and he feared to reveal the truth. "Are there any tidings of him?" said she; "is he safe--or has his flight been discovered? But," continued she in a lower voice, "you need not speak. Your looks reveal the whole. He is again imprisoned." Arthur bowed his head, glad to be spared the painful task of asserting the fact. "And there is no hope of pardon or acquittal?" she asked.