“I’ll do it,” she replied, “I’ll do it; to be sure I feel it’s not right, an’ if I had one single hope in this world, I’d scorn it; but I’m now desperate; I tried to be good, but I’m only a cobweb before the wind—­everything is against me, an’ I think I’m like some one that never had a guardian angel to take care of them.”

The Prophet then gave her a detailed account of their plan for carrying away Mave Sullivan, and of his own subsequent intentions in life.

“We have more than one iron in the fire,” he proceeded, “an’ as soon as everything comes off right, and to our wishes, we’ll not lose a single hour in going to America.”

“I didn’t think,” said Sarah, “that Dalton ever murdered Sullivan till I heard him confess it; but I can well understand it now.  He was hasty, father, and did it in a passion, but it’s himself that has a good heart.  Father, don’t blame me for what I say, but I’d rather be that pious, affectionate ould man, wid his murdher on his head, than you in the state you’re in.  An’ that’s thrue, I must turn back and go to them—­I’m too long away:  still, something ails me—­I’m all sickish, my head and back especially.”

“Go home to your own place,” he replied; “maybe it’s the sickness you’re takin.”

“Oh, no,” she replied, “I felt this way once or twice before, an’ I know it’ll go off me—­good-bye.”

“Good-bye, Sarah, an’ remember, honor bright and saicresy.”

“Saicresy, father, I grant you, but never honor bright for me again.  It’s the world that makes me do it—­the wicked, dark, cruel world, that has me as I am, widout a livin’ heart to love me—­that’s what makes me do it.”

They then separated, he pursuing his way to Dick o’ the Grange’s, and she to the miserable cabin of the Daltons.  They had not gone far, however, when she returned, and calling after him, said—­

“I have thought it over again, and won’t promise altogether till I see you again.”

“Are you goin’ back o’ your word so soon!” he asked, with a kind of sarcastic sneer.  “I thought you never broke your word, Sarah.”

She paused, and after looking about her as if in perplexity, she turned on her heel, and proceeded in silence.

CHAPTER XXVI. —­ The Pedlar Runs a Close Risk of the Stocks.

Nelly’s suspicions, apparently well founded as they had been, were removed from the Prophet, not so much by the disclosure to her and Sarah, of his having been so long cognizant of Sullivan’s murder by Dalton, as by that unhappy man’s own confession of the crime.  Still, in spite of all that had yet happened, she could not divest herself of an impression that something dark and guilty was associated with the Tobacco-box; an impression which was strengthened by her own recollections of certain incidents that occurred upon a particular night, much about the time of Sullivan’s disappearance.  Her memory,