But this could not last, and, at length, the coach reached a spot where Armstrong proposed they should alight.  Accordingly, he assisted Faith out, and, preceding her, they took their way across the fields.  Faith, unable to resist the attraction of the wild-flowers scattered beneath her feet, stooped occasionally to pick them, and soon had her hands full.

“What a pity it is, father,” she said, “that we should step upon these beautiful things!  They seem little fairies, enchanted in the grass, that entreat us to turn aside and do them no harm.”

“It is our lot, in this world, cursed for our sakes,” said Armstrong, hoarsely, “to crush whatever we prize and love the dearest.”

“The flower is an emblem of forgiveness,” 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 Armstrong.  “Was this, too, necessary?  Wilt thou grind me between the upper and the nether millstone?”

“What is the matter, father?” inquired Faith, anxiously, catching some words between his groans.  “O, you are ill, let us return.”

“No, my daughter, there is no return.  It was a pang like those to which I am subject.  Will they ever pass off?”

They had reached the open space of ground or clearing made by Gladding, and Armstrong advanced, with Faith following, directly to the pile he had built near the brook.

“What a beautiful stream!” exclaimed Faith.  “How it leaps, as if alive and rejoicing in its activity!  I always connect happiness with life.”

“You are mistaken,” said Armstrong.  “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 accompaniment to the songs of the birds which flit among them, while the dear little brook laughs 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 wood was built up so carefully near the edge of the water.”

“It is the altar on which I am commanded to sacrifice thee, my child,” said Armstrong, seizing her by the arm, and drawing 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.