Mahone hesitated, some coward thought, which might have been conscience in another man, checked the criminal proposition he was about to make. “Did you ask anything?” inquired Ellen, slowly folding the check which she hid carefully away in her bosom. “Yes, I did, Miss Post. What are we a waiting for? how long will you keep this ardent heart on the fence?” “Mr. Mahone, you speak so metaphorically that I can’t quite understand.” “When—when are we to be married—to unite our fortunes and share and share alike?” Miss Post cast down her eyes and began to roll up one of her cap strings, feeling herself to be a young lady of romance with an ardent hero before her. “When will that confounded—that gorgeous wedding dress be done?” “It—it can be finished in an hour,” faltered the damsel, “I was just fastening flowers into the bridal veil.” “Then what is in the way? Who is to hinder us from being married this very night?” demanded the lover whom a single glimpse of that check had rendered half frantic with greed. “To-night! Oh! Mr. Mahone!” “Yes, this very night. The dress is ready—I have got what would amount to a basket of champagne stored away, and my heart—my heart!” “Don’t! don’t appeal to me in that way; you know my weakness, you know how impossible it is to refuse you anything.” “Is that so? Prove it then, Ellen, prove it by having that dress on at eight o’clock this evening. I will have a carriage at the back entrance, and a minister ready. Promise now; if your love for me is the genuine thing, you will.” “Oh, Mahone, I promise!” “At eight, then?” “At eight you will find me here waiting.” CHAPTER LVIII. MOTHER AND SON. When Mrs. Laurence heard this wild cry from her boy, she turned suddenly and held out her arms. The poor little fellow rushed into them, and clung to her, trembling under a fierce effort to be brave and choke back the tears that rushed, hot and painful, to his eyes. Up to this moment the old woman had been too indignant for sorrow. The grey of her eyes shone out hard and cold as steel; but now a mist stole over them and her whole frame shook visibly. “James! James! there, there, hush! These men must not see you cry. You have done nothing. I have done nothing. Be brave then, as your mother is.” James drew his head back, and looked in the old woman’s face, shaking the tears away from his own vision that he might comfort her with an effort to obey and be strong. But the sight of that pale, shocked countenance brought them back with a rush. “Oh, mother! mother! what will they do to you?” “How can we tell, my child?” “And the girls, Ruthy and Eva, will they bring them too?” The old woman shook her head. “I don’t know. How can I?” “Where are they—oh! where are they, mother?” cried the boy, startled with a new fear. “At home. I left them safe—don’t, don’t tremble so, Jimmy.”