As Rivers spoke, Munro drew forth his pistols and looked carefully at the priming.  The sharp click of the springing steel, as the pan was thrown open, now fully aroused Lucy to that consciousness which had been only partial in the greater part of this dialogue.  Springing to her feet with an eagerness and energy that was quite astonishing after her late prostration, she rushed forward to her uncle, and looked appealingly into his face, though she did not speak, while her hand grasped tenaciously his arm.

“What means the girl?” exclaimed Munro, now apprehensive of some mental derangement.  She spoke, with a deep emphasis, but a single sentence:—­

“It is written—­thou shalt do no murder!”

The solemn tone—­the sudden, the almost fierce action—­the peculiar abruptness of the apostrophe—­the whitely-robed, the almost spiritual elevation of figure—­all so dramatic—­combined necessarily to startle and surprise; and, for a few moments, no answer was returned to the unlooked-for speech.  But the effect could not be permanent upon minds made familiar with the thousand forms of human and strong energies.  Munro, after a brief pause, replied—­

“Who speaks of murder, girl?  Why this wild, this uncalled-for exhortation?”

“Not wild, not uncalled-for, uncle, but most necessary.  Wherefore would you pursue the youth, arms in your hands, hatred in your heart, and horrible threatenings upon your lips?  Why put yourself into the hands of this fierce monster, as the sharp instrument to do his vengeance and gratify his savage malignity against the young and the gentle?  If you would do no murder, not so he.  He will do it—­he will make you do it, but he will have it done.  Approach me not—­approach me not—­let me perish, rather!  O God—­my uncle, let him come not near me, if you would not see me die upon the spot!” she exclaimed, in the most terrified manner, and with a shuddering horror, as Rivers, toward the conclusion of her speech, had approached her with the, view to an answer.  To her uncle she again addressed herself, with an energy which gave additional emphasis to her language:—­

“Uncle—­you are my father now—­you will not forget the dying prayer of a brother!  My prayer is his.  Keep that man from me—­let me not see him—­let him come not near me with his polluted and polluting breath!  You know not what he is—­you know him but as a stabber—­as a hater—­as a thief!  But were my knowledge yours—­could I utter in your ears the foul language, the fiend-threatenings which his accursed lips uttered in mine!—­but no—­save me from him is all I ask—­protect the poor orphan—­the feeble, the trampled child of your brother!  Keep me from the presence of that bad man!”

As she spoke, she sank at the feet of the person she addressed, her hands were clasped about his knees, and she lay there shuddering and shrinking, until he lifted her up in his arms.  Somewhat softened by his kindness of manner, the pressure upon her brain of that agony was immediately relieved, and a succession of tears and sobs marked the diminished influence of her terrors.  But, as Rivers attempted something in reply, she started—­