“Oh, now you are, indeed, my father—­yet—­uncle, shall I see you at the time when it is to be done?  Tell me at what moment you seek his deliverance, that I may be upon my knees.  Yet say not to him that I have done anything or said anything which has led to your endeavors.  He will not think so well of me if you do; and, though he may not love, I would have him think always of me as if—­as if I were a woman.”

She was overcome with exertion, and in the very revival of her hope, her strength was exhausted; but she had sunk into a sweet sleep ere her uncle left the apartment.

CHAPTER XXXV.

NEW PARTIES ON THE STAGE.

A day more had elapsed, and the bustle in the little village was increased by the arrival of other travellers.  A new light came to the dungeon of Ralph Colleton, in the persons of his uncle and cousin Edith, whom his letters, at his first arrest, had apprized of his situation.  They knew that situation only in part, however; and the first intimation of his doom was that which he himself gave them.

The meeting was full of a painful pleasure.  The youth himself was firm—­muscle and mind all over; but deeply did his uncle reproach himself for his precipitation and sternness, and the grief of Edith, like all deep grief, was dumb, and had no expression.  There was but the sign of wo—­of wo inexpressible—­in the ashy lip, the glazed, the tearless and half-wandering eye, and the convulsive shiver, that at intervals shook her whole frame, like strong and sudden gusts among the foliage.  The youth, if he had any at such an hour, spared his reproaches.  He narrated in plain and unexaggerated language, as if engaged in the merest narration of commonplace, all the circumstances of his trial.  He pointed out the difficulties of his situation, to his mind insuperable, and strove to prepare the minds of those who heard, for the final and saddest trial of all, even as his own mind was prepared.  In that fearful work of preparation, the spirit of love could acknowledge no restraining influence, and never was embrace more fond than that of Ralph and the maiden.  Much of his uncle’s consolation was found in the better disposition which he now entertained, though at too late a day, in favor of their passion.  He would now willingly consent to all.

“Had you not been so precipitate, Ralph—­” he said, “had you not been so proud—­had you thought at all, or given me time for thought, all this trial had been spared us.  Was I not irritated by other things when I spoke to you unkindly?  You knew not how much I had been chafed—­you should not have been so hasty.”

“No more of this, uncle, I pray you.  I was wrong and rash, and I blame you not.  I have nobody but myself to reproach.  Speak not of the matter; but, as the best preparation for all that is to come, let your thought banish me rather from contemplation.  Why should the memory of so fair a creature as this be haunted by a story such as mine?  Why should she behold, in her mind’s eye, for ever, the picture of my dying agonies—­the accursed scaffold—­the—­” and the emotion of his soul, at the subject of his own contemplation, choked him in his utterance, while Edith, half-fainting in his arms, prayed his forbearance.