Part 50 (1/2)
”The flower is an eiveness,” said Faith ”Pluck it, and it resents not the wrong It dies, but with its last breath, exhales only sweetness for its destroyer”
”O, God!” groaned Arrind me between the upper and the nether millstone?”
”What is thesoroans ”O, you are ill, let us return”
”No,like those to which I am subject Will they ever pass off?”
They had reached the open space of ground or clearing , directly to the pile he had built near the brook
”What a beautiful strea in its activity! I always connect happiness with life”
”You are”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 acco thehs 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 as built up so carefully near the edge of the water”
”It is the altar on which I a, seizing her by the ar 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 exclai in the power of a maniac, far fro 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 ar, with a gentle force he loosed the hold of the fainting girl, ith one hand e his knees, and the other held up to deprecate his violence, sunk at his feet
”God have mercy upon us! Christ have asped
”Faith, , with a terrible cale knife out of his bosom, ”You know I do not this of er the soul of my child, which is dearer than her life Think, dear child, in a , and all is over Let me kiss you first”
He stooped down, he inclosed her in his arms, and strained her to his heart--he imprinted innumerable kisses on her lips, her eyes, her cheeks, her forehead--he groaned, and large drops of sweat stood on his face, pressed out by the agony
”You will see your e, Faith Tell them not to blame me I could not help it You will not blaht I wish it was for you to kill o first, and I am very weary of life”
He raised the knife, and Faith, with upturned and straining eyes, saw it glittering in the sunshi+ne She strove to cry out, but in vain
From the parched throat no sound proceeded She saw the point about to enter her bosom She shut her eyes, and mentally prayed for her father At that moment, as the deadly instrument approached her heart, she heard a voice exclaim, ”Madman forbear!” She opened her eyes: the knife had dropped froainst the altar A feords will explain the tihter left the carriage to cross the field, the mind of Felix was filled with a thousand apprehensions He would have followed had he dared to leave the horses, but this, his fear of the consequences if the high-spirited animals were left to the foot-steps of his ht, and then, with a foreboding of evil, hid his face in the flowingcomfort from his dumb companion Some little time passed, which to the fearful Felix seemed hours, when, whom should he see but the man who along with strides which showed that the habits of his forest-life were not forgotten At any other ti but pleasure, but noas as welcome as a spar to a shi+pwrecked sailor Holden advanced straight to the carriage, but before he could speak the black addressed hi and Miss Faith, go after them quick; don't stop a o in that direcshu with his chin, across the field
”How long ago?”
”Ever so long; Oh, good Mr Holden, do hurry,” said Felix, whose anxieties ress of ti his speed, hastened on an Indian lope in the direction indicated, following the traces in the grass