“Miss Helmstedt, look me in the face!” She raised her agonized eyes to his countenance. All present looked and listened. No one thought by word or gesture of interfering between the father and daughter. “Miss Helmstedt,” he began, in the low, deep, stern tone of concentrated passion, “what was that which you said just now?” “I said, my father, in effect, that you must not fight; that your cause is accurst; that the charges brought against me are--true!” “You tell me that----” “The charges brought against me are true!” she said, in a strange, ringing voice, every tone of which was audible to all present. Had the fabled head of the Medusa, with all its fell powers, arisen before the assembled party, it could not have produced a more appalling effect. Each stood as if turned to stone by her words. The father and daughter remained confronted like beings charged with the mortal and eternal destiny of each other. At length Margaret, unable to bear the scrutiny of his fixed gaze, dropped her head upon her bosom, buried her burning face in her hands, and turned away. Then Major Helmstedt, keeping his eyes still fixed with a devouring gaze upon her, slowly raised, extended and dropped his hand heavily upon her shoulder, clutched, turned, and drew her up before him. “Again! let fall your hands; raise your head; look me in the face, minion!” She obeyed, dropping her hands, and lifting her face, crimsoned with blushes, to his merciless gaze. “Repeat--for I can scarce believe the evidence of my own senses! The charges brought against you, by the Houstons, are----” “True! They are true!” she replied, in a voice of utter despair. “Then, for three years past, ever since your betrothal to Mr. Ralph Houston, you have been in secret correspondence with a strange young man, disapproved by your protectress?” asked Major Helmstedt, in a sepulchral tone. “I have--I have!” “And you have met this young man more than once in private?” “Yes, yes!” she gasped, with a suffocating sob. “On the day of the festival, and of the landing of the British upon our island, you passed several hours alone with this person in the woods?” A deprecating wave of the hand and another sob was her only reply. “Once, at least, you received this man in your private apartment at Buzzard’s Bluff?” A gesture of affirmation and of utter despondency was her answer. “The night of that same visit, you secretly left the room of your protectors for an unexplained absence of several days, some of which were passed in the company of this person?” For all reply, she raised and clasped her hands and dropped them down before her, and let her head fall upon her bosom with an action full of irremediable despair. Her father’s face was dark with anguish. “Speak, minion!” he said, “these things must not be left to conjecture; they must be clearly understood. Speak! answer!”