With an effort which seemed supernatural, the dying woman raised herself with a sudden start in the bed, and her eyes glared upon him with a threatening horror, and her lips parting, disclosed the broken and decayed teeth beneath, ineffectually gnashing, while her long, skinny fingers warned him away.  All this time she appeared to speak, but the words were unarticulated, though, from the expression of every feature, it was evident that indignation and reproach made up the entire amount of everything she had to express.  The outlaw was not easily influenced by anger so impotent as this; and, from his manner of receiving it, it appeared that he had been for some time accustomed to a reception of a like kind from the same person.  He approached the young girl, who had now risen from her knees, and spoke to her in words of comparative kindness:—­

“Well, Ellen, you have had an alarm, but I am glad to see you have suffered no injury.  How happened the fire?”

The young woman explained the cause of the conflagration, and narrated in brief the assistance which had been received from the stranger.

“But I was so terrified, Guy,” she added, “that I had not presence of mind enough to thank him.”

“And what should be the value of your spoken thanks, Ellen?  The stranger, if he have sense, must feel that he has them, and the utterance of such things had better be let alone.  But, how is the old lady now?  I see she loves me no better than formerly.”

“She is sinking fast, Guy, and is now incapable of speech.  Before you came, she seemed desirous of saying something to me, but she tried in vain to speak, and now I scarcely think her conscious.”

“Believe it not, Ellen:  she is conscious of all that is going on, though her voice may fail her.  Her eye is even now fixed upon me, and with the old expression.  She would tear me if she could.”

“Oh, think not thus of the dying, Guy—­of her who has never harmed, and would never harm you, if she had the power.  And yet, Heaven knows, and we both know, she has had reason enough to hate, and, if she could, to destroy you.  But she has no such feeling now.”

“You mistake, Ellen, or would keep the truth from me.  You know she has always hated me; and, indeed, as you say, she has had cause enough to hate and destroy me.  Had another done to me as I have done to her, I should not have slept till my hand was in his heart.”

“She forgives you all, Guy, I know she does, and God knows I forgive you—­I, who, above all others, have most reason to curse you for ever.  Think not that she can hate upon the brink of the grave.  Her mind wanders, and no wonder that the wrongs of earth press upon her memory, her reason being gone.  She knows not herself of the mood which her features express.  Look not upon her, Guy, I pray you, or let me turn away my eyes.”

“Your spirit, Ellen, is more gentle and shrinking than hers.  Had you felt like her, I verily believe that many a night, when I have been at rest within your arms, you would have driven a knife into my heart.”