“Come, madness! come unto me senseless death,
I cannot suffer this! here, rocky wall,
Scatter these brains, or dull them.”—Baillie.

“I know not, I ask not,
If guilt’s in thy heart—
I but know that I love thee,
Whatever thou art.”—Moore.

In a dark and gloomy apartment, whose grated windows and dreary walls were hung here and there with blackening cobwebs—and whose darkness and gloom were made visible by the pale rays of a glimmering lamp, sat the young, the handsome, the graceful, the fascinating Bryant Clinton. He sat, or rather partly reclined on the straw pallet, spread in a corner of the room, propped on one elbow, with his head drooping downward, and his long hair hanging darkly over his face, as if seeking to veil his misery and shame.

It was a poor place for such an occupant. He was a young man of leisure now, and had time to reflect on the past, the present, and the future.

The past!—golden opportunities, lost by neglect, swept away by temptation, or sold to sin. The present!—detection, humiliation, and ignominy. The future!—long and dreary imprisonment—companionship with the vilest of the vile, his home a tomb-like cell in the penitentiary—his food, bread and water—his bed, a handful of straw—his dress, the felon’s garb of shame—his magnificent hair shorn close as the slaughtered sheep’s—his soft white hands condemned to perpetual labor!

As this black scroll slowly unrolled before his spirit’s eye, this black scroll, on which the characters and images gleamed forth so red and fiery, it is no wonder that he writhed and groaned and gnashed his teeth—it is no wonder that he started up and trod the narrow cell with the step of a maniac—that he stopped and ground his heel in the dust—that he rushed to the window and shook the iron bars, with unavailing rage—that he called on God to help him—not in the fervor of faith, but the recklessness of frenzy, the impotence of despair.

Suddenly a deadly sickness came over him, and reeling back to his pallet, he buried his face in his hands and wept aloud—and the wail of his soul was that of the first doomed transgressor, “My punishment is greater than I can bear.”

While there he lies, a prey to keen and unavailing agonies, we will take a backward glance at the romance of his childhood, and the temptations of his youth.

Bryant Clinton was the son of obscure parents. When a little boy, his remarkable beauty attracted the admiration of every beholder. He was the pet of the village school, the favorite on the village green. His intelligence and grace were equal to his beauty, and all of these attributes combined in one of his lowly birth, seemed so miraculous, he was universally admitted to be a prodigy—a nonpareil. When he was about ten years of age, a gentleman of wealth and high social standing, was passing through the town, and, like all strangers, was struck by the remarkable appearance of the boy. This gentleman was unmarried, though in the meridian of life, and of course, uncontrolled master of all his movements. He was very peculiar in character, and his impulses, rather than his principles, guided his actions. He did not love his relatives, because he thought their attentions were venal, and resolved to adopt this beautiful boy, not so much from feelings of benevolence towards him, as a desire to disappoint his mercenary kindred. Bryant’s natural affections were not strong enough to prove any impediment to the stranger’s wish, and his parents were willing to sacrifice theirs, for the brilliant advantages offered to their son. Behold our young prodigy transplanted to a richer soil, and a more genial atmosphere. His benefactor resided in a great city, far from the little village where he was born, so that all the associations of his childhood were broken up and destroyed. He even took the name of his adopted father, thus losing his own identity. Had Mr. Clinton been a man of pure and upright principles, had he been faithful to the guardianship he had assumed, and educated his heart, as well as his mind, Bryant might have been the ornament instead of the disgrace, the blessing instead of the bane of society. He had no salient propensities to evil, no faults which righteous wisdom might not have disciplined. But indulged, caressed, praised and admired by all around him, the selfishness inherent in our nature, acquired a hot-bed growth from the sultry moral atmosphere which he breathed.

The gentle, yet restraining influence which woman, in her purity and excellence, ever exerts, was unfortunately denied him. Mr. Clinton was a bachelor, and the careful, bustling housekeeper, who kept his servants and house in order, was not likely to burden herself with the charge of young Bryant’s morals. All that Mr. Clinton supervised, was his progress at school, which surpassed even his most sanguine expectations. He was still the prodigy—the nonpareil—and as he had the most winning, insinuating manners—he was still the favorite of teachers and pupils. As he grew older, he was taken much into society, and young as he was, inhaled, with the most intense delight, the incense of female adulation. The smiles and caresses bestowed upon the boy-paragon by beautiful and charming women, instead of fostering his affections, as they would have done, had they been lavished upon him for his virtues rather than his graces, gave precocious growth and vigor to his vanity, till, like the cedar of Lebanon, it towered above all other passions. This vanity was only visible to others in an earnest desire to please—it only made him appear more amiable and gentle, but it was so strong, so vital, that it could not, “but by annihilating, die.”

Another fatal influence acted upon him. Mr. Clinton, like most rich bachelors, was fond of having convivial suppers, where wine and mirth abounded. To these young Bryant was often admitted, for his beauty and talents were the pride and boast of his adopted father. Here he was initiated into the secrets of the gaming-table, not by practice, (for he was not allowed to play himself,) but by observation, a medium of instruction sufficiently transparent to his acute and subtle mind. Here he was accustomed to hear the name of God uttered either in irreverence or blasphemy, and the cold sneer of infidelity withered the germs of piety a mother’s hand had planted in his bosom. Better, far better had it been for him, never to have left his parent’s humble but honest dwelling.

Just as he was about to enter college, Mr. Clinton suddenly died of a stroke of apoplexy, leaving the youth whom he had adopted, exposed to the persecutions of his worldly and venal relatives. He had resolved to make a will, bequeathing his property to Bryant, as his sole heir; but having a great horror of death, he could not bear to perform the act which would remind him too painfully of his mortality.

“Time enough when I am taken sick,” he would say, “to attend to these things;” but the blow which announced the coming of death, crushed the citadel of thought. There was no time for making wills, and Bryant was left far poorer than his adopted father had found him, for he had acquired all the tastes which wealth alone can gratify, and all the vices, too.

When he returned, reluctant and disappointed, with alienated feelings, to his native home, he found that his father was dead, and his mother a solitary widow. By selling the little farm which had served them for a support, and restricting herself of every luxury, and many comforts, she could defray the expenses of a collegiate education, and this she resolved to do. Bryant accepted the sacrifice without hesitation, deeming it his legitimate right.

On his way to the university, which was still more remote from his native village than that was from the home of his adopted father, he conceived the design of imposing upon his new companions the story of his Virginian birth—though born in reality in one of the Middle States. He had heard so much of Virginian aristocracy, of the pride of tracing one’s descent from one of the first families of Virginia, that he thought it a pardonable deception if it increased his dignity and consequence. He was ashamed of his parentage, which was concealed under the somewhat patrician name of Clinton, and as he chose to change his birth-place, it was not very probable that his real origin would be discovered. He had previously ascertained that no boys were members of the college, who had ever seen him before, or who knew any thing of the region where he had dwelt. He soon became a star-scholar, from the brilliancy of his talents, and a favorite, too, from the graceful pliancy of his manners, and apparent sweetness of his disposition. But with all his grace and sweetness, he was unprincipled and dissolute, and exerted the commanding influence he had acquired over the minds of his companions, to lead them into temptation, and lure them to sin. Yet he had the art to appear himself the tempted, as well as they. His agency was as invisible as it was powerful, and as fatal, too. When, with seeming reluctance, he took his seat at the gaming-table and won, as he invariably did, from his unsuspecting comrades, he manifested the deepest regret and keenest remorse. No one suspected that it was through his instrumentality they were seduced into error and ruin.

Louis, the impulsive, warm-hearted, and confiding Louis Gleason, was drawn as if by fascination towards this young man. There was a luminous atmosphere around him, that dazzled the judgment, and rendered it blind to his moral defects. Dissipation appeared covered with a golden tissue, that concealed all its deformity; and reckless prodigality received the honors due to princely generosity.

When Clinton accompanied Louis to his father’s house, and beheld the beautiful Mittie, gilt, as he first saw her by the rays of the setting sun, he gave her the spontaneous homage which beauty ever received from him. He admired and for a little time imagined he loved her. But she was too easy a conquest to elate his vanity, and he soon wearied of her too exacting love. Helen, the shy, child-like, simple hearted Helen, baffled and interested him. She shunned and feared him, and therefore he pursued her with increasing fervor of feeling and earnestness of purpose. Finding himself terribly annoyed by Mittie’s frantic jealousy, he resolved to absent himself awhile till the tempest he had raised was lulled, and urging Louis to be his companion, that he might have a plea for returning, departed, as has been described, not to his pretended home, but to haunts of guilty pleasure, where the deluded Louis followed, believing in his infatuation that he was only walking side by side with one sorely tempted, reluctantly transgressing, and as oft repenting as himself.With the native chivalry of his character, he refused to criminate his friend, and justify his father’s anger. It was to Clinton his debts of honor were chiefly due, and it was for this reason he shrunk from revealing them to his father.

When Clinton found himself excluded from the presence of Helen, whose love he was resolved to win, his indignation and mortification were indescribable; but acknowledging no obstacles to his designs, he watched his opportunity and entered Miss Thusa’s cabin, as we have related in the last chapter. He was no actor in that interview, for he really felt for Helen, emotions purer, deeper and stronger than he had ever before cherished for woman. He had likewise all the stimulus of rivalry, for he believed that Arthur Hazleton loved her, that calm, self-possessed and inscrutable being, whose dark, spirit-reaching eye his own had ever shunned. Helen’s unaffected terror, her repulsion and flight were wormwood and gall to his pampered vanity and starving love. Her undisguised emotion at the mention of Arthur, convinced him of his ascendency over her heart, and the hopelessness of his present pursuit. Still he lingered near the spot, unwilling to relinquish an object that seemed more and more precious as the difficulty of obtaining it increased. He stood by the window, watching, at times, glimpses of Helen’s sweet, yet troubled countenance, as the curtain flapped in the wintry wind. It was then he heard Miss Thusa relate the secret of her hidden wealth, and the demon of temptation whispered in his ear that the hidden gold might be his. Helen cared not for it—she knew not its value, she needed it not. Very likely when the wheel should come into her possession, and she examined its mystery, if the legacy were missing, she would believe its history the dream of an excited imagination, and think of it no more. He had never stolen, and it did seem low and ungentlemanlike to steal, but this was more like finding some buried treasure, something cast up from the ocean’s bed. It was not so criminal after all as cheating at the gaming-table, which he was in the constant habit of doing. Then why should he hesitate if opportunity favored his design? Mr. Gleason had insulted him in the grossest manner, Helen had rejected him, Louis had released himself from his thraldom. There was no motive for him to remain longer where he was, and he was assured suspicion would never rest on him, though he took his immediate departure. The next night he attempted to execute his shameful purpose by forging the note, sending it by an unsuspecting messenger, thus despatching the young doctor, on a professional errand. Every thing seemed to favor him. The woman whom Arthur had commanded to keep watch during his absence had sunk back into a heavy sleep as soon as his voice died on her ear—so there was nothing to impede the robber’s entrance. Clinton waited till he thought Arthur had had time to reach the place of his destination, and then stole into the sick chamber with noiseless steps. Miss Thusa was awakened by a metallic, grating sound, and beheld, with unspeakable horror, her beloved wheel lying in fragments at the feet of the spoiler. The detection, the arrest, the imprisonment are already known.

And now the unhappy young man lay on his bed of straw, in an ignominious cell, cursing the gold that had tempted, and the weakness and folly that had yielded and rushed into the snare. Louis had visited him, but his visit had afforded no consolation. What was pity or sympathy without the power to release him? Nothing, yea, worse than nothing. He could not tell the hour, for time, counted by the throbs of an agonized heart, seems to have the attribute of eternity—endless duration. He knew it was night by the lamp which had been brought in with the bread and water, which stood untasted by him. He had not noticed the darkening shadow stealing over the grated windows, his soul was so dark within. He knew, too, that it must be somewhat late, for the lamp grew dimmer and dimmer, capped by a long, black wick, with a hard, fiery crest.

He heard the key twisting in the rusted lock, the door swinging heavily open, and supposed the jailor was examining the cells before retiring to rest. He was confirmed in this belief by seeing his figure through the opening, but when another figure glided in, and the jailor retreated, locking the door behind him, he knew that his prison had received an unexpected guest. He could not imagine what young boy had thought of visiting his cell, for he knew not one of the age this youth appeared to be. He was wrapped in a dark cloak, so long that it swept the prison floor, and a dark fur cap pulled far over the forehead, shaded his face.

Clinton raised himself on his elbow and called out, in a gloomy tone, “Who is there?”

The youth advanced with slow steps, gathering up the sweeping folds of his cloak as he walked, and sunk down upon the wooden bench placed against the damp brick wall. Lifting his hands and clasping them together, he bowed his face upon them, while his frame shook with imprisoned emotion. The hands clasped over his face gleamed like snow in the dim cell, and they were small and delicate in shape, as a woman’s. The dejected and drooping attitude, the downcast face, the shrouded and trembling form, the feminine shame visible through the disguise, awakened a wild hope in his heart. Springing up from his pallet, he eagerly approached the seeming boy, and exclaimed—

“Helen, Helen—have you relented at last? Do you pity and forgive me? Do you indeed love me?”

“Ungrateful wretch!” cried a voice far different from Helen’s. The drooping head was quickly raised, the cap dashed from the head, and the cloak hurled from the shoulders. “Ungrateful wretch, as false as vile, do you know me now?”

“Mittie! is it indeed you?” said Clinton, involuntarily recoiling a few steps from the fiery glance that flashed through her tears. “I am not worthy of this condescension.”

“Condescension!” repeated she, disdainfully. “Condescension! Yes—you say well. You did not expect me!” continued she, in a tone of withering sarcasm. “I am sorry for your disappointment. I am sorry the gentle Helen did not see fit to leave her downy bed, and warm room, braving the inclemency of the wintry blast, to minister to her waiting lover. It is a wondrous pity.”

Then changing her accent, and bursting into a strain of the most impassioned emotion—

“Oh, my soul! was it for this I came forth alone, in darkness and stealth, like the felon whose den I sought? Is it on such a being as this, I have wasted such boundless wealth of love? Father, mother, brother, sister—all vainly urged their claims upon my heart. It was marble—it was ice to them. They thought I was made of stone, granite; would to Heaven I were. But you, Clinton; but you breathed upon the rock, you softened, you warmed; and now, wretch, you grind it into powder. You melted the ice—and having drained the waters, you have left a dry and burning channel—here.”

Mittie pressed her hand upon her heart, with a gesture of pain, and began to traverse wildly the narrow cell; her cloak, which had fallen back from her shoulders, sweeping in the dust. Every passion was wrestling for mastery in her bosom.

“Why,” she exclaimed, suddenly stopping and gazing fixedly upon him, “why did you make me conscious of this terrible vitality? What motive had you for crossing my path, and like Attila, the destroyer, withering every green blade beneath my feet? I had never wronged you. What motive, I ask, had you for deceiving and mocking me, who so madly trusted, so blindly worshipped?”

“Spare me, Mittie,” exclaimed the humbled and convicted Clinton. “Trample not on a fallen wretch, who has nothing to say in his defence. But one thing I will say, I have not intended to deceive you. I did love you, and felt at the time all that I professed. Had you loved me less, I had been more constant. But why, let me ask, have you sought me here, to upbraid me for my inconstancy? What good can it do to you or to me? You call me a wretch: and I acknowledge myself to be one, a vile, ungrateful wretch. Call me a thief, if you will, if the word does not blister your tongue to utter it. I confess it all. Now leave me to my fate.”

“Confess one thing more,” said Mittie, “speak to me as if it were your dying hour—for you will soon be dead to me, and tell me, if it is for the love of Helen you abandon mine?”

Clinton hesitated, a red color flushed his pallid cheek. He could not at that moment, in the presence of such deep and true passion, utter a falsehood; and degraded as he was, he could not bear to inflict the pain an avowal of the truth might cause.

“Speak,” she urged, “and speak truly. It is all the atonement I ask.”“My love can only reflect disgrace on its object. Rejoice that it rests on her, rather than yourself. But she has avenged your wrongs. She rejected me before my hand was polluted with this last foul crime. She upbraided me for my perfidy to you, and fled from my sight with horror. Had she loved me, I might have been saved—but I am lost now.”

Mittie stood immovable as a statue. Her eyes were fixed upon the floor, her brow contracted and her lips firmly closed. She appeared to be going through a petrifying process, so marble was her complexion, so rigid her features, so unchanging her attitude.

“’Twas but a moment o’er her soul
Winters of memory seemed to roll,”

congealing her as they rolled. As Clinton looked upon her and contrasted that pale and altered form, with the resplendent figure that he had beheld like an embodied rainbow on the sun-gilded arch, his conscience stung him with a scorpion sting. He had said to himself, while parlying with the tempter about the gold, that he had never stolen. He now felt convicted of a far worse robbery, of a more inexpiable crime—for which God, if not man, would judge him—the theft of a young and trusting heart, of its peace, its confidence and hope, leaving behind a cold and dreary void. He could not bear the sight of that desolate figure, so lately quickened with glowing passions.

“Clinton,” said Mittie, breaking the silence in a low, oppressed voice, “I see you have one virtue left, of the wreck of all others. I honor that one. You asked me why I came. I will tell you. I knew you guilty, steeped in ignominy, the scorn and by-word of the town, guilty too of a crime more vile than murder, for murder may be committed from the wild impulse of exasperated passion—but theft is a cold, deliberate, selfish, coward act. Yet knowing all this, I felt willing to brave every danger, to face death itself, if it were necessary, to release you from the horrid doom that awaits you—to save you from the living grave which yawns to receive you. I am willing still, in spite of your alienated affection, your perjured vows and broken faith—so mighty and all-conquering is even the memory of the love of woman. Here, wrap this cloak about you, pull this cap over your brows—your long, dark hair will aid the disguise. The jailer will not detect it, or mark your taller figure, by this dim and gloomy light. He is sleepy and weary, and I know his senses are deadened by brandy; I perceived its burning fumes as we walked that close and narrow passage. Clinton, there is no danger to myself in this release, you know there is not. The moment they discover me, they will let me go. Hasten, for he will soon be here.”

“Impossible,” exclaimed Clinton, “I cannot consent; I cannot leave you in this cell—this cold, fireless cell, on such a night as this. I cannot expose you to your father’s displeasure, to the censures of the world. No, Mittie, I am not worthy of this generous devotion; but from my soul I bless you for it. Besides, it would be all in vain. A discovery would be inevitable.”

“Escape would be certain,” she cried, with increasing energy. “I marked that jailer well—his senses are too much blunted for the exercise of clear perception. You are slender and not very tall; your face is as fair as mine, your hair of the same color. If you refuse, I will seek a colder couch than that pallet of straw; I will pass the night under the leafless trees, and my pillow shall be the snowy ground. As for my father’s displeasure, I have incurred it already. As for the censures of the world, I scorn them. What do you call the world? This village, this town, this little, narrow sphere? I live in a world of my own, as high above it as the heavens are above the earth.”

Clinton’s opposition weakened before her commanding energy. The hope of freedom kindled in his breast, and lighted up his countenance.

“But you,” said he, irresolutely, “even if you could endure the horrors of the night, cannot be concealed on his entrance. How can you pass for me?” he cried, looking down on her woman’s apparel, for she had thrown the cloak over his arm, and stood in her own flowing robes.

“I will throw myself on the pallet, and draw the blankets over me. My sable locks,” gathering them back in her hand, for they hung loosely round her face—“are almost the counterpart of yours. I can conceal their length thus.” Untying the scarf which passed over her shoulders and encircled her waist, she folded it over her flowing hair. “When the blanket is over me,” she added, “I shall escape detection. Hasten! Think of the long years of imprisonment, the solitary dungeon, the clanking chains, the iron that will daily enter your soul. Think of all this, and fly! Hark! I hear footsteps in the passage. Don’t you hear them? My God! it will be too late!”

Seizing the cloak, she threw it over his shoulders, snatched up the cap, and put it upon his head, which involuntarily bent to receive it, and wildly tearing herself from the arms that wrapped her in a parting embrace, sprang to the pallet, and shrouded herself in the dismal folds from which Clinton had shrunk in disgust.

Clinton drew near the door. It opened, and Arthur Hazleton entered the cell. The jailer stood on the outside, fumbling at the lock, turning the massy key backward and forward, making a harsh, creaking sound. His head was bent close to the lock, in which there appeared to be some impediment. The noise which he made with the grating key, the stooping position he had assumed, favored the escape of Clinton.

As Arthur entered, he glided out, unperceived by him, for the jailer had brought no light, and the prisoner was standing in the shadow of the wall.

“There,” grumbled the jailer, “I believe that will do—I must have this lock fixed to-morrow. Here, doctor, take the key, I can trust you, I know. When you are ready to go, drop it in my room, just underneath this. I mean drop in, and give it to me, I am sick to-night. I am obliged to go to bed.”

Arthur assured him that he would attend faithfully to his directions, and that he might retire in perfect security. Then locking the door within, he walked towards the pallet, where the supposed form of the prisoner lay, in the stillness of dissembled sleep. His face was turned towards the straw, the bed cover was drawn up over his neck, nothing was distinctly visible in the obscurity but a mass of dark, gleaming hair, reflecting back the dim light from its jetty mirror.Arthur did not like to banish from his couch, that

“Friend to the wretch, whom every friend forsakes.”

He seated himself on the bench, folded his cloak around him, and awaited in silence the awakening of the prisoner. He had come, in obedience to the commands of his Divine Master, to visit those who are in prison, and minister unto them. Not as Mittie had done, to assist him in eluding the just penalty of the offended majesty of the laws. He did not believe the perpetrator of such a crime as Clinton’s entitled to pardon, but he looked upon every son of Adam as a brother, and as such an object of pity and kindness.

While he sat gazing on the pallet, watching for the first motion that would indicate the dispersion of slumber, he heard a cough issuing from it, which his practiced ear at once recognized as proceeding from a woman’s lungs. A suspicion of the truth flashed into his mind. He rose, bent over the couch, and taking hold of the covering, endeavored to draw it back from the face it shrouded. He could see the white hands that clinched it, and a tress of long, waving hair, loosened by the motion, floated on his sight.

“Mittie—Mittie Gleason!” he exclaimed, bending on one knee, and trying to raise her—“how came you here? Yet, why do I ask? I know but too well—Clinton has escaped—and you—”

“I am here!” she cried, starting to her feet, and shaking back her hair, which fell in a sable mantle over her shoulders, flowing far below the waist. “I am here. What do you wish of me? I am not prepared to receive company just yet,” she added, deridingly; “my room is rather unfurnished.”

She looked so wild and unnatural, her tone was so mocking, her glance so defying, Arthur began to fear that her reason was disordered. Fever was burning on her cheeks, and it might be the fire of delirium that sparkled in her eyes. He took her hand very gently, and tried to count the beatings of her pulse, but she snatched it from him with violence, and commanded him to leave her.

“This is my sanctuary,” she cried. “You have no right to intrude into it. Begone!—I will be alone.”“Mittie, I will not leave you here—you must return with me to your father’s house. Think of the obloquy you may incur by remaining. Come, before another enters.”

“If I go, you will be suspected of releasing the prisoner, and suffer the penalty due for such an act. No, no, I have braved all consequences, and I dare to meet them.”

“Then I leave you to inform the jailer of the flight of the prisoner. It is my duty.”

“You will not do so mean and unmanly a deed!” springing between him and the door, and pressing her back against it. “You will not basely inform of him whom a young girl has had the courage to release. You—a man, will not do it. Will you?”

“An act of justice is never base or cowardly. Clinton is a convicted thief, and deserves the doom impending over such transgressors. He is an unprincipled and profligate young man, and unworthy the love of a pure-hearted woman. He has tempted your brother from the paths of virtue, repaid your confidence with the coldest treachery, violated the laws of God and man, and yet, unparalleled infatuation—you love him still, and expose yourself to slander and disgrace for his sake.”

He spoke sternly, commandingly. He had tried reason and persuasion, he now spoke with authority, but it was equally in vain.

“Who told you that I love him?” she repeated. “’Tis false. I hate him. I hate him!” she again repeated, but her lips quivered, and her voice choked.

Arthur hailed this symptom of sensibility as a favorable omen. He had never intended to inform the jailer of Clinton’s escape. He would not be instrumental to such an event himself, knowing, as he did, his guilt, but since it had been effected by another, he could not help rejoicing in heart. Perhaps Clinton might profit by this bitter lesson, and “reformation glittering over his faults”—efface by its lustre the dark stain upon his name. And while he condemned the rashness and mourned for the misguided feelings of Mittie, he could not repress an involuntary thrill of admiration for her deep, self-sacrificing love. What a pity that a passion so sublime in its strength and despair should be inspired by a being so unworthy.

“Will you not let me pass?” said he.

“Never, for such a purpose.”

“I disclaim it altogether, I never intended to put in execution the threat I breathed. It was to induce you to leave this horrible place that I uttered it. I am ashamed of the subterfuge, though the motive was pure. Mittie, I entreat you to come with me; I entreat you with the sincerity of a friend, the earnestness of a brother. I will never breathe to a human being the mystery of Clinton’s escape. I will guard your reputation with the most jealous vigilance. Not even my blind Alice shall be considered a more sacred trust than you, if you confide yourself to my protecting care.”

“Are you indeed my friend?” she asked, in a softened voice, with a remarkable change in the expression of her countenance. “I thought you hated me.”

“Hated you! What a suspicion!”

“You have always been cold and distant—never sought my friendship, or manifested for me the least regard. When I was but a child, and you first visited our family, I was attracted towards you, less by your gentle manners than your strong, controlling will. Had you shown as much interest in me as you did in Helen, you might have had a wondrous influence on my character. You might have saved me from that which is destroying me. But it is all past. You slighted me, and lavished all your care on Helen. Every one cared for Helen more than me, and my heart grew colder and colder to her and all who loved her. What I have since felt, and why I have felt it for others, God only knows. Others! Why should I say others? There never was but one—and that one, the false felon, whom I once believed an angel of light. And he, even he has thrown my heart back bleeding at my feet, for the love he bears to Helen.”

“Which Helen values not,” said the young doctor, half in assertion and half in interrogation.

“No, no,” she replied, “a counter influence has saved her from the misery and shame.”

Mittie paused, clasped her hands together, and pressed them tightly on her bosom.“Oh!” she exclaimed, “it is no metaphor, when they talk of arrows piercing the breast. I feel them here.”

Her countenance expressed physical suffering as well as mental agony. She shivered with cold one moment, the next glowed with feverish heat.

Arthur took off his cloak, and folded it round her, and she offered no resistance. She was sinking into that passive state, which often succeeds too high-wrought emotion.

“You are very kind,” said she, “but you will suffer.”

“No—I am accustomed to brave the elements. But if you think I suffer, let us hasten to a warmer region. Give me your hand.”

Firmly grasping it, he extinguished the lamp, and in total darkness they left the cell, groped through the long, narrow passage, down the winding stairs, at the foot of which was the jailer’s room. Arthur was familiar with this gloomy dwelling, so often had he visited it on errands of mercy and compassion. It was not the first time he had been entrusted with the key of the cells, though he suspected that it would be the last. The keeper, only half awakened, received the key, locked his own door, and went back to his bed, muttering that “there were not many men to be trusted, but the young doctor was one.”

When Arthur and Mittie emerged from the dark prison-house into the clear, still moonlight, (for the moon had risen, and over the night had thrown a veil of silvery gauze,) Arthur’s excited spirit subsided into peace, beneath its pale, celestial glory. Mittie thought of the fugitive, and shrunk from the beams that might betray his flight. The sudden barking of the watch-dog made her tremble. Even their own shadows on the white, frozen ground, she mistook for the avengers of crime, in the act of pursuit.

“What shall we do?” said Arthur, when, having arrived at Mr. Gleason’s door, they found it fastened. “I wish you could enter unobserved.”

Mittie’s solitary habits made her departure easy, and her absence unsuspected, but she could not steal in through the bolts and locks that impeded her admission.

“No matter,” she cried, “leave me here—I will lie down by the threshold, and wait the morning. All places are alike to me.”

Louis, whose chamber was opposite to Mittie’s, in the front part of the house, and who now had many a sleepless night, heard voices in the portico, and opening the window, demanded “who was there?”

“Come down softly and open the door,” said Arthur, “I wish to speak to you.”

Louis hastily descended, and unlocked the door.

His astonishment, on seeing his sister with Arthur Hazleton, at that hour, when he supposed her in her own room, was so great that he held the door in his hand, without speaking or offering to admit them.

“Let us in as noiselessly as possible,” said Arthur. “Take her directly to her chamber, kindle a fire, give her a generous glass of Port wine, and question her not to-night. Let no servant be roused. Wait upon her yourself, and be silent on the morrow. Good-night.”

“It is too bright,” whispered she, as Louis half carried her up stairs, stepping over the checker-work the moon made on the carpet.

“What is too bright, Mittie?”

“Nothing. Make haste—I am very cold.”

Louis led Mittie to a chair, then lighting a candle, he knelt down and gathered together the still smoking brands. A bright fire soon blazed on the hearth, and illuminated the apartment.

“Now for the wine,” said he.

“He is gone, Louis,” said she, laying her hand on his arm. “He is fled. I released him. Was it not noble in me, when he loves Helen, and he a thief, too?”

Louis thought she spoke very strangely, and he looked earnestly at her glittering eyes.

“I am glad of it!” he exclaimed—“he is a villain, but I am glad he is escaped. But you, Mittie—you should not have done this. How could you do it? Did Arthur Hazleton help you?”

“Oh, no! I did it very easily—I gave him your cloak and cap. You must not be angry, you shall have new ones. They fitted him very nicely. He would run faster, if my heart-strings did not get tangled round his feet, all bleeding, too. Don’t you remember, Miss Thusa told you about it, long ago?”

“My God, Mittie! what makes you talk in that way? Don’t talk so. Don’t look so. For Heaven’s sake, don’t look so wild.”

“I can’t help it, Louis,” said she, pressing her hands on the top of her head, “I feel so strange here. I do believe I’m mad.”

She was indeed delirious. The fever which for many days had been burning in her veins, now lighted its flames in her brain, and raged for more than a week with increasing violence.

She did not know, while she lay tossing in delirious agony, that the fugitive, Clinton, had been overtaken, and brought back in chains to a more hopeless, because doubly guarded captivity.

Justice triumphed over love.

He who sows the wind, must expect to reap the whirlwind.