“I did,” she moaned, in an expiring voice, as her head sank lower upon her breast, and her form cowered under the weight of an overwhelming shame and sorrow. And well she might. Here, in the presence of men, in the presence of her father and her lover, she was making admissions, the lightest one of which, unexplained, was sufficient to brand her woman’s brow with ineffaceable and eternal dishonor! Her lover’s head had sunk upon his breast, and he stood with folded arms, set lips, downcast eyes and impassable brow, upon which none could read his thoughts. Her father’s face had grown darker and sterner, as he questioned and she answered, until now it was terrible to look upon. A pause had followed her last words, and was broken at length by Major Helmstedt, who, in a voice, awful in the stillness and depth of suppressed passion, said: “Wretched girl! why do you linger here? Begone! and never let me see you more!” “Father, father! have mercy, have mercy on your poor child!” she exclaimed, clasping her hands and dropping at his feet. “Minion! never dare to desecrate my name, or pollute my sight again. Begone!” he exclaimed, spurning her kneeling form and turning away. “Oh, father, father! for the sweet love of the Saviour!” she cried, throwing her arms around his knees and clinging to him. “Wretch! outcast! release me, avoid my presence, or I shall be driven to destroy you, wanton!” he thundered, giving way to fury, and shaking her as a viper from her clinging hold upon his feet; “wanton! courtez----” But ere that word of last reproach could be completed, swift as lightning she flew to his bosom, clung about his neck, placed her hand over his lips to arrest his further speech, and gazing intensely, fiercely into his eyes--into his soul, exclaimed: “Father, do not finish your sentence. Unless you wish me to drop dead before you, do not. As you hope for salvation, never apply that name to--her daughter.” “Her daughter!” he retorted, violently, shaking her off, until she fell collapsed and exhausted at his feet--“her daughter! Changeling, no daughter of hers or of mine are you. She would disown and curse you from her grave! and----” “Oh, mother, mother! oh, mother, mother!” groaned the poor girl, writhing and groveling like a crushed worm on the ground. “And I,” he continued, heedless of her agony, as he stooped, clutched her arm, jerked her with a spring upon her feet, and held her tightly confronting him. “I--there was a time when I was younger, that had any woman of my name or blood made the shameful confessions that you have made this day, I would have slain her on the instant with this, my right hand. But age somewhat cools the head, and now I only spurn you--thus!” And tightening his grasp upon her shoulder, he whirled her off with such violence that she fell at several yards distant, stunned and insensible upon the ground. Then, followed by his second, he strode haughtily from the place.