by urging me to this confidence. You have not had time to think on the subject, how deeply and closely it will involve your peace of mind, nay, perhaps your health of soul-how intimately and perfectly your fate must become intertwined with that of him, into whose secret heart you are now about to penetrate unbidden". "There must be safety, father", said the girl, a little startled and confounded by the strangeness of his manner, "there must be peace, wherever you lead me". "Do nothing on presumption ", was his reply. "I wish you to pause, and ponder well, before you have my secret, for when it is once told, I shall hold you bound to me, and to my service, more firmly than ever, though perhaps not equally to my love". The last words were uttered in so mournful a tone that the current of Katharine's feelings, which had been a little disturbed and qualified by the mysticism of the previous speech, again rushed into their old channel. Her eyes filled up as she grasped her parent's hand in hers, and wetting it with tears of filial love and reverence, she said, in hurried, and yet irresolute accents: If 66 O father, I do not know what you mean, or what I am to fear; but speak-speak, in God's name; whatever it is that troubles you ought not to be spared to me. it be a sorrowful tale, I may make its memory sit lighter on your heart, and two, at least, can bear the burden better than one. If it be guilt that--guilt" (she shuddered and was silent one instant, as she detected a word on her lips, which her will had not directed them to utter) "forgive me, sir, that cannot be, I know-No, father, no", in increasing agony, as she read not the indignant denial she looked so eagerly for in his cold and marbly eye -"you have taught me to love virtue, to adore God, to fear His anger, to deserve His mercy. Father! speak! speak to me "Peace, girl!" said the old man sadly, yet sternly; "attribute not to the inactive instrument the music which was made by the divine breath that filled and the hand that governed it. He who holds a light to another, is most like to fall himself. Sit still, and hear me". And replacing the trembling girl in the chair, which in her agitation she had left, he stood close at her side, and after a pause, began: "You have heard of the circumstances which attended the death of William's father?" "Yes, yes, sir!" replied Kate, in a low and hurried tone, with a horrible failure and sinking at her heart. “When he died, there was but one friend at his side". As he proceeded, the sallow and ashy countenance of the old man became deepened in hue by the rushing of the scanty currents of life into channels which they had long ceased to visit, and his eye became gradually fiercer and fiercer, as the fear and horror that oppressed his daughter became more manifest in her look and attitude. "Sit erect, girl, and hear me steadily. You have forced me to say what, except in madness, I thought mortal ears should never hear me utter, and you must abide the consequence. Sit still, then, and do not flinch or waver, while I speak to you, as you value your father's reason". "I will, sir. I am not terrified", whispered the bewildered girl, while a strange mixture of anxiety and listlessness became blended in the gaze which she now bent on the old man. "The two friends", he continued, after a pause of fearful recollection, "were sitting together by the little brick hob in the hooker's cabin, and talking gaily enough about the work they had both been about. Friends leagued in crime are but light lovers, though their bonds are the stronger by the addition of fear and community of guilt, than those which simple liking ties. Few words were necessary to bring the frown and the taunt where the laugh and the jest were seen and heard a little while before. A sharp speech provoked a blow, and the friendship of a long life was dissolved as suddenly as life itself, when the deathstroke touches it. The man who received the indignity remained silent and gloomy during the remainder of the evening. Although he did not refuse his hand when the aggressor sued for reconciliation, the disgrace was festering at his heart. Soon after, a dark and foggy night came on. Both these men ascended on deck to speak at greater freedom, and draw a somewhat purer air than that of the close and smoky cabin where they had been lying just before. At a moment when the vessel heeled more deeply than usual before the blast, while the steersman was busy at the helm, and his mate with the foresheet-and while the two stood alone and. unseen (though not unheard) upon the forecastle-one roaring, laughing, and unsteady with drunkenness and with triumph; the other equally intoxicated, but after a darker and more sullen fashion, and from a different cause, the aggressor staggered a little, reeled, and overhung the lee-gunwale. The opportunity flashed like lightning upon the heart of his enemy; he darted on him, and in the fierce effort almost precipitated his own fate and mingled it with that of his victim. The fluke of an anchor, however, caught in a part of his frieze great coat, and he hung suspended between both worlds, while the dying shrieks of his victim, the gurgling of the death struggle, the angry dash of the waters, and the whirring of the wild gale, sounded in his ears like the din of the last judgment. He was saved, however. The vessel swept on, and the voice of the dying man was speedily lost in the distance. A lie protected his destroyer". The old man here paused and sunk back in his chair, exhausted by the fierceness and horror of his recollected sensations; while his daughter sat stooping forward, her eyes fixed in motionless horror upon his, and every feature bent up, and set hard in an expression of de vouring attention; her limbs and frame stiffening with the anguish of the dreadful suspense in which the old man's pause had left her, 66 -as if each other sense Were bound in that of hearing, and each word "The At length he resumed in a faint and hoarse tone, without daring to lift his eyes toward his auditor: man who died on that night was Robert Aylmer; and his murderer was- ". Uttering a low, yet piercing scream of agony, the wretched girl cast herself at the feet of her guilty father, in an attitude of deprecation and entreaty. "No, no, you will not say it, sir. Oh! do not, in the name of the Heaven you have taught me to venerate, plunge us both into such a gulf of horror. What! my father! my kind, good father, in whose bosom I have been fondled-whose lips I have kissed-whose hand has blest me morning and evening for fifteen years-my dear, dear father, do a deed so full of horror and crime-a murderer, a secret murderer!-Ha!" with a cry of exultation, as a momentary flush of burning pride and shame, the impulse of an uncalculating instinct, passed over the brow of the old man at the branding epithet,-"I see it there-I knew it could not be; you are not he of whom you spoke, father? Forgive, forgive me, sir, for so cruel, so insulting an anticipation of your words". "It is too late for recanting them now", said Fitzmaurice quietly, but with a dreadful ghastliness in his eye: "the blood of my oldest friend is on my hands; I have told my sin, and my soul is lighter". "Good Heaven! blessed mother of God!" muttered Katharine, as she rose from her knees, and passed one hand in a trembling and hurried manner over her forehead and about her loosened hair, while her eye became fixed in stupid terror on the earth. A silence of terrible reflection to both ensued. Fitzmaurice perceived, at a glance, that he had for ever lost the esteem of his child. That was bitter. Katharine beheld, in one short hour, the peace, the happiness of her whole existence withered and parched up; her duty made burdensome as crime; her heart's warmest and best affections made grievous to her soul, its faith disproved, its idol broken down, and the shrine of its worship polluted and made desolate. This was more bitter still. After a pause of some minutes, Fitzmaurice approached her and held out his hand. She shuddered, and shrunk back upon herself with an involuntary action and a halfstifled exclamation of repugnance. He attempted to smile, but his lip grew pale, and his brows were knit in anguish at the change. "I thought this, Kate", he said, sadly; "but I do not blame you for it. And yet it is a sad promise to me of what I am to expect from a malignant and suspicious world, when my own daughter, whom I have reared and cared for now sixteen years, shrinks from my touch as if it were that of a viper". Perceiving that this appeal was ineffectual, and that the stroke had been too hardly dealt on his daughter's heart, Fitzmaurice continued, rising: "And now, Kate, though I put your affection to a strong test before I spoke to you on this, you shall not find me ungenerous enough to profit by the hasty enthusiasm of the moment. I have lost your love. I grieve for it, but I do not blame you. Yet, without your love I will never allow your service nor companionship. Go you out at that door-I will take this; and let that be our final parting. Go, my loved, my injured child; forget your miserable father,-think of him as of one departed, but not in crime-for that would make his memory bitter to you,-but as one who erred, and found the grace that Heaven treasures for the penitent. Another |