“Mother,” said she, “I came to see my father, for I know he won’t strike me now, and he never did.  O, no, because I ran away from him and from all of you, but not till after I had deserved it; before that I was safe.  Mother, didn’t my father love me once better than his own life?  I think he did.  O, yes, and I returned it by murdering him—­by sending him—­that father there that loved me so well—­by—­by sending him to the hangman—­to a death of disgrace and shame.  That’s what his own Nannie, as he used to call me, did for him.  But no shame—–­no guilt to you, father; the shame and the guilt are your own Nannie’s, and that’s the only comfort I have; for you’re happy, what I will never be, either in this world or the next.  You are now in heaven; but you will never see your own Nannie there.”

The recollections caused by her appearance, and the heart-rending language she used, touched her mother’s heart, now softened by her sufferings into pity for her affliction, if not into a portion of the former affection which she bore her.

“O Nannie, Nannie!” said she, now weeping bitterly upon a fresh sorrow, “don’t talk that way—­don’t, don’t; you have repentance to turn to; and for what you’ve done, God will yet forgive you, and so will your mother.  It was a great crime in you; but God can forgive the greatest, if his own creatures will turn to him with sorrow for what they’ve done.”

She never once turned her eyes upon her mother, nor raised them for a moment from her father’s face.  In fact, she did not seem to have heard a single syllable she said, and this was evident from the wild but affecting abstractedness of her manner.

“Mother!” she exclaimed, “that man they say is a murderer, and yet I am not worthy to touch him.  Ah!  I’m alone now—­altogether alone, and he—­he that loved me, too, was taken away from me by a cruel death—­ay, a cruel death; for it was barbarous to kill him as if he was a wild beast—­ay, and without one moment’s notice, with all his sins upon his head.  He is gone—­he is gone; and there lies the man that murdered him—­there he lies, the sinner; curse upon his hand of blood that took him I loved from me!  O, my heart’s breakin’ and my brain is boilin’!  What will I do?  Where will I go?  Am I mad?  Father, my curse upon you for your deed of blood!  I never thought I’d live to curse you; but you don’t hear me, nor know what I suffer.  Shame! disgrace—­ay, and I’d bear it all for his sake that you plunged, like a murderer, as you were, into eternity.  How does any of you know what it is to love as I did? or what it is to lose the man you love by a death so cruel?  And this hair that he praised so much, who will praise it or admire it now, when he is gone?  Let it go, too, then.  I’ll not keep it on me—­I’ll tear it off—­off!”