ever pass off?"

They had reached the open space of ground or clearing made by
Gladding, and Armstrong advanced, with Faith following, directly to
the pile he had built near the brook.

"What a beautiful stream!" exclaimed Faith. "How it leaps, as if alive
and rejoicing in its activity! I always connect happiness with life."

"You are mistaken," said Armstrong. "Life is wretchedness, with now
and then a moment of delusive respite to tempt us not to cast it
away."

"When your health returns, you will think differently, dear father.
Look! how enchanting this blue over-arching sky, in which the clouds
float like angels. With what a gentle welcome the wind kisses our
cheeks, and rustles the leaves of the trees, as if to furnish an
accompaniment to the songs of the birds which flit among them, while
the dear little brook laughs and dances and claps its hands, and tells
us, like itself, to be glad. There is only one thing wanting, father,
and that is, that you should be happy. But I wonder why this pile of
wood was built up so carefully near the edge of the water."

"It is the altar on which I am commanded to sacrifice thee, my child,"
said Armstrong, seizing her by the arm, and drawing her towards it.

There was a horror in the tones of his voice, a despair in the
expression of his face, and a lurid glare in his eyes, that explained
all his previous conduct, and revealed to the unhappy girl the full
danger of her situation; even as in a dark night a sudden flash of
lightning apprises the startled traveller of a precipice over which
his foot has already advanced, and the gleam serves only to show him
his destruction.

"Father, you cannot be in earnest," she exclaimed, dreadfully alarmed
at being in the power of a maniac, far from assistance, "you do not
mean so. Oh," she said throwing herself into his arms, "I do not
believe my father means to hurt me."

"Why do you not fly? Why do you throw your arms about me? Do you think
to defeat the decree? Unwind your arms, I say, and be obedient unto
death."

So saying, with a gentle force he loosed the hold of the fainting
girl, who with one hand embracing his knees, and the other held up to
deprecate his violence, sunk at his feet.

"God have mercy upon us! Christ have mercy upon us," her pale lips
faintly gasped.

"Faith, my precious, my darling," said Armstrong, with a terrible
calmness, as he drew a large knife out of his bosom, "You know I
do not this of myself, bu