'Well, come on--I'm ready for anything--out with it. I'm so glad Bill is better, I don't care what comes now; but look cheerful a little; do, I beg of you; I have dark looks enough at home. The old man is so cross about something or other lately, that he can't give me a civil word. I thought when I came along, what I would give just to live among you here. I tell you what, Hettie, I had rather live with you and your mother, and have nothing but bread and water, only to hear kind words;--well, you are queer--just now you was so pale, and now your face is red as a rose.' Hettie felt the flush which David had noticed; he had never spoken quite so plainly to her before, and she began to fear what next might come; so she commenced the unpleasant task of making him acquainted with his father's conduct; but she did not give the account in the order that she received it, for she began at the catastrophe, and told the story as well as she could, without alluding to the main instigator of the plot. 'But what could have induced those men to commit such a deed? and what could they have wanted with the trunk without there was money in it?' 'There was no money in it, but there were papers of great consequence.' 'Papers? what could they know about papers? they can't read, not one of them; what good would papers do them?' said David; his countenance pale, and his lips trembling with emotion. 'There is something more in all this that you have not yet told me, Hettie; some one is at the bottom of it. Who is it?' Hettie covered her face with her hands. 'Don't be afraid, Hettie; out with it--is it my father?' Hettie burst into tears, and David sank to the earth, helpless as an infant. Seeing that he was greatly agitated, and that he seemed in need of help, she was about to go for her mother. 'Don't leave me, Hettie. Do you think that this is truth, and that William has his reason?' 'He seems to have it, perfectly; he has given a clear account of things from the first--I fear it is true.' 'Does any one know of this besides you and your brother?' 'No human being as yet.' 'Depend upon it, Hettie, if my father has instigated this act, he has been in some way thwarted in his design; for his temper, never very good, has been outrageous for some time past; so much so, that I have made up my mind to leave him and this region for ever. There is but one thing which keeps me; you and your mother are the only persons in the world that I care much about--and you I love as I do my life. If you will marry me, Hettie, I will get together all I have got; it will be enough to purchase us a place far away from here, and we will take your mother, and Bill, too, if he gets well; and how happy we shall be.' Hettie was deeply affected, but she felt that she must deal plainly with him. 'You must not talk so, David; you and I can never be married.' 'You are ashamed of me already, Hettie. My father's disgrace, I see, is to be mine.'