d on his face, 'Michael Rust never yields; and then,
let the law do its worst. Take your money; I don't need it.'

Kornicker hesitated; and then thrusting it in his pocket, said: 'I
suppose, if you should happen to be short, you'll let me know.'

'I will,' replied Rust; 'but I've enough to last until my sand is run out.
They'll hang me.'

'Don't talk so,' exclaimed Kornicker, with a feeling not a little akin to
fear, at the cold, indifferent manner in which the other spoke. 'You _may_
escape--who knows?'

Rust looked at him steadily, and then said, in a low, calm voice: 'If it
were not that man and law were leagued against me to _force_ me to my
doom, not one dollar would Michael Rust give to add an hour to his life.
He looks to the grave only as that dark abyss which knows neither thought
nor care; where the past is forgotten; where the future ends. Death is but
a deep dreamless sleep, which has no waking. Yet even this boon he will
not accept, if it's _forced_ upon him.'

'But the disgrace, the disgrace of such an end,' exclaimed Mr. Kornicker,
twisting his fingers together, and in his earnestness cracking the
knuckles of all of them. 'Think of that, my old fellow. Think of the stain
that will always rest upon your memory.'

A smile, without a trace of pleasure, but cold and icy, passed across
Rust's face.

'What is my memory to me? What care I for the whispers and sneers and
surmises of the reptiles who crowd this world, and who will soon be as _I_
then shall be? What are these very men themselves? Shadows!--shadows!
Go--my course is chosen. You can do nothing for me.'

Still Kornicker did not show any intention of quitting the room, but
shifted from one leg to the other, in a fidgety manner, as if he had
something farther to communicate, upon which however he did not like to
venture. At last he said: 'Your daughter?'

Rust turned a quick keen eye on him, but farther than this evinced no
emotion.

'Perhaps she may need a friend, when--when----'

'I'm dead,' said Rust, concluding what seemed to be rather an embarrassing
sentence to Kornicker.

'I'm not exactly the fellow to make the offer,' said Kornicker, adopting
the conclusion which Rust had given to the phrase; 'but--but I'll keep an
eye on her, and will lend her a helping hand if she gets in trouble.'

Rust's countenance expressed neither pleasure nor anger, as he answered:

'Nothing can be done for her. Her fate is sealed; her path is marked out.