rdition. Girl! have you no power over the wealth that must
be rusting in your coffers? Are you not trusted with the key to your
household treasures?"

"Do you think I would take his gold clandestinely?" I asked, glowing
with indignation, and recoiling from the expression of his eager,
burning eye. We were walking slowly during this exciting conversation;
and, cold as it was, the moisture gathered on my brow. "Here is a purse,
given me for a holier purpose. Take it, and let me go."

"Thank you,--bless you, my child! but this will only relieve present
necessity. It will not carry me in safety to distant climes. Bless you!
but take it back, take it back. I can only meet my doom!"

"I _will_ go to my husband!" I exclaimed with sudden resolution; "I
_will_ tell him all, and he, and he alone shall aid you. I will not
wrong him by acting without his knowledge. You have no right to endanger
my life-long peace. You have destroyed my mother; must her child too be
sacrificed?"

"I see there is but one path of escape," he cried, snatching a pistol
from his breast, and turning the muzzle to his heart. "Fool, dolt, idiot
that I am! I dreamed of salvation from a daughter's hand, but I have
forfeited a father's name, a father's affection. Gabriella, you might
save me, but I blame you not. Do not curse me, though I fill a felon's
grave;--better that than the dungeon--the scaffold."

"What would you do?" I whispered hoarsely, seizing his arm with
spasmodic grasp.

"Die, before I am betrayed."

"I will not betray you; what sum will suffice for your emergency? Name
it."

"As many thousands as there are hundreds there," pointing to the purse.

"Good heavens!"

"Gabriella, you must have jewels worth a prince's ransom; you had
diamonds last night on your neck and arms that would redeem your
father's life. Each gem is but a drop of water in the deep sea of _his_
riches. His uncle was a modern Cr[oe]sus, and he, his sole heir."

"How know you this?" I asked.

"Every one knows it. The rich are the cities on the hill-tops, seen afar
off. You hesitate,--you tremble. Keep your diamonds,--but remember they
will eat like burning coals into your flesh."

Fierce and deadly passions gleamed from his eye. He clenched the pistol
so tight that his nails turned of a purplish blue.

No one was near us, to witness a scene so strange and appalling. The
thundering sounds of city life were rolling along the great thoroughfare
of the metropolis,