ndistinctly heard, being the only answer that would
have been given to a call for aid in a house more like a haunt for
ghosts and spectres than a residence for human beings), I felt the
impression of her peculiar misery pass over me, making me shudder as
if I had been seized with a fit of the ague. The frail, brittle
creature lying there, a victim of hysterics, fit only to be
cherished and guarded by a doting mother--placed in a large, empty,
gousty mansion--doomed to guard alone a suicide and a father, and,
perhaps, to wrestle with him through blood--her parent's blood!--for
the preservation of a remaining spark of a self-taken life! She at
length recovered, exhibiting the ordinary precursors of returning
consciousness--convulsive shiverings, rolling of the eyes, and
beating about with the hands. On perceiving me indistinctly, she
articulated--

"Death! death!--that was the word he spoke sae wildly.--Ah! I know it
now!--James H---- has lang tried to conceal it frae me; but I hae
discovered it at last. Can you save him, sir?--can you save the
faither o' her wha has scarcely anither freend on earth?"

A flood of tears followed this ejaculation. She tore her hair like a
maniac. I tried everything in my power to pacify her; but terror had
completely mastered her weak nerves, and she shook as the successive
frightful images suggested by her situation passed through her excited
and still confused mind.

"Is there no one in those parts," said I, "that can attend your
father, and assist you? Who is the James H---- you just now mentioned?"

"He is my cousin," replied she. "He lived with us for some time; but
my father and he quarrelled about a _razor_, which he said James
wanted to steal from him. But I see it now. There was nae theft.
James, poor James, was innocent, and wanted to save him; but they
concealed it frae me, and my cousin was turned away."

The mention of the word razor made me start. I had left the instrument
on the head of the drawers, and I had even now heard the wretched
man's groans. I hurried to the room, and entered softly. He was in a
fit of dejection, groaning, at intervals, deeply, like a man in bodily
pain. I took up the instrument without being noticed, and returned to
the kitchen. It was now almost dark. I had three miles to ride through
wild hill paths, and I heard some threatening indications of a
night-storm. The young woman was still lying on the couch, with her
terrors undiminished; but I c