“Oh, no!” she exclaimed, in a low voice, that was melody itself; “I never got it from either the one or the other—­the kind or soft word—­an’ it’s surely no wondher that I am as I am.”

And as she spoke she wept.  Her heart had been touched by the distress of her fellow creatures, and became, as it were, purified and made tender by its own sympathies, and she wept.  Both of them looked at her; but as they were utterly incapable of understanding what she felt, this natural struggle of a great but neglected spirit excited nothing on their part but mere indifference.

At this moment, the prophet, who seemed laboring under a fierce but gloomy mood, rose suddenly up, and exclaimed—­

“Nelly—­Sarah!—­I can bear this, no longer; the saicret must come out.  I am—­”

“Stop,” screamed Sarah, “don’t say it—­don’t say it!  Let me leave the counthry.  Let me go somewhere—­any where—­let me—­let me—­die first.”

“I am——­,” said he.

“I know it,” replied his wife; “a murdherer!  I know it now—­I knew it since yesterday mornin’.”

“Give him justice,” said Sarah, now dreadfully excited, and seizing him by the breast of his coat,—­“give him common justice—­give the man justice, I say.  You are my father, aren’t you?  Say how you did it.  It was a struggle—­a fight; he opposed you—­he did, and your blood riz, and you stabbed him for fear he might stab you.  That was it.  Ha! ha!  I know it was, for you are my father, and I am your daughter; and that’s what I would do like a man.  But you never did it—­ah! you never did it in cowld blood, or like a coward.”

There was something absolutely impressive and commanding in her sparkling eyes, and the energetic tones of her voice, whilst she addressed him.

“Donnel,” said the wife, “it’s no saicret to me; but it’s enough now that you’ve owned it.  This is the last night that I’ll spend with a murdherer.  You know what I’ve to answer for on my own account; and so, in the name of God, we’ll part in the mornin’.”

“Ha!” exclaimed Sarah, “you’d leave him now, would you?  You’d desart him now; now that all the world will turn against him; now that every tongue will abuse him; that every heart will curse him; that every eye will turn away from him with hatred; now that shame, an’ disgrace, an’ guilt is all upon his head; you’d leave him, would you, and join the world against him?  Father, on my knees I go to you;” and she dropped down as she spoke; “here on my knees I go to you, an’ before you spake, mark, that through shame an’ pain, an’ sufferin’, an’ death, I’ll stay by you, an’ with you.  But, I now kneel to you—­what I hardly ever did to God—­an for his sake, for God’s sake, I ask you; oh say, say that you did not kill the man in cowld blood; that’s all!  Make me sure of that, and I’m happy.”

“I think you’re both mad,” replied Donnel.  “Did I say that I was a murdherer?  Why didn’t you hear me out?”