_that_!"

"Why not?" rejoined the other, stoutly. "Will not these men, too, call
God to witness what they know to be a lie? Will not _He_ discern the
motive that prompts _you_--desire to see a wronged man righted, the
innocent set free--and the motive that prompts _them_--malicious hate?
Or do you deem the all-seeing eye of Heaven is purblind? I tell you
this, girl, if I were in _your_ place, and the man I loved stood
_justly_ in such peril, I would swear a score such oaths to set him
free! Yet here, with justice on your side and truth, and Heaven itself,
you hesitate; you shrink from uttering a mere form of words, the spirit
of which is contrary to the letter, and for conscience sake, forsooth,
will let your lover perish! _Your_ lover! yes, but you were never _his_,
although he thinks so. I will go hence, and tell him that you refuse to
speak the thing that alone can save him from life-long wretchedness; I
will go and tell him that the girl for whose sake he has brought this
load of ruin on himself will not so much as lift it with her little
finger! You fair, foul devil, how I hate you!" She drew herself up to
her full height, and regarded the wretched girl with such contemptuous
scorn that even in her abject misery she felt its barb.

"I have not earned your hate," said Harry, with some degree of firmness,
"if I have earned your scorn; nor is it meet that you should so despise
me, because I fear to anger God."

"And man," added the other, with bitterness. "You fear your father's
wrath far more than Heaven's."

That bolt went home: the unhappy girl did indeed stand in greater terror
of her father than of the sin of perjury; and the idea of affirming upon
oath what she had but a few days before so solemnly denied to him was
filling her with consternation and dismay. Still the picture that had
just been drawn of the ruin that would assuredly befall her Richard,
unless she interposed to save him, had more vivid colors even than that
of Trevethick's anger. Let him kill her, if he would, after the trial
was over, but Richard should go free.

"I will do your bidding, madam," said she, suddenly, "though I perish,
body and soul."

"You say that now, girl, and it's well and bravely said; but will you
have strength to put your words to proof? When I am gone, and there are
none but Richard's foes about you, will you resist their menaces, their
arguments, their cajolements, and be true as steel?"

"I will, I will; I swear