“Never!” thundered Wacousta,—­“never!  The very circumstance you have now named is an additional incentive to my vengeance.  My nephew saved the life of your brother at the hazard of his own; and how has he been rewarded for the generous deed?  By an ignominious death, inflicted, perhaps, for some offence not more dishonouring than those which have thrown me an outcast upon these wilds; and that at the command and in the presence of the father of him whose life he was fool enough to preserve.  Yet, what but ingratitude of the grossest nature could a Morton expect at the hands of the false family of De Haldimar!  They were destined to be our bane, and well have they fulfilled the end for which they were created.”

“Almighty Providence!” aspirated the sinking Clara, as she turned her streaming eyes to heaven; “can it be that the human heart can undergo such change?  Can this be the being who once loved my mother with a purity and tenderness of affection that angels themselves might hallow with approval; or is all that I have heard but a bewildering dream?”

“No, Clara,” calmly and even solemnly returned the warrior; “it is no dream, but a reality—­a sad, dreadful, heart-rending reality; yet, if I am that altered being, to whom is the change to be ascribed?  Who turned the generous current of my blood into a river of overflowing gall?  Who, when my cup was mantling with the only bliss I coveted upon earth, traitorously emptied it, and substituted a heart-corroding poison in its stead?  Who blighted my fair name, and cast me forth an alien in the land of my forefathers?  Who, in a word, cut me off from every joy that existence can impart to man?  Who did all this?  Your father!  But these are idle words.  What I have been, you know; what I now am, and through what agency I have been rendered what I now am, you know also.  Not more fixed is fate than my purpose.  Your brother dies even on the spot on which my nephew died; and you, Clara, shall be my bride; and the first thing your children shall be taught to lisp shall be curses on the vile name of De Haldimar!”

“Once more, in the name of my sainted mother, I implore you to have mercy,” shrieked the unhappy Clara.  “Oh!” she continued, with vehement supplication, “let the days of your early love be brought back to’ your memory, that your heart may be softened; and cut yourself not wholly off from your God, by the commission of such dreadful outrages.  Again I conjure you, restore us to my father.”

“Never!” savagely repeated Wacousta.  “I have passed years of torture in the hope of such an hour as this; and now that fruition is within my grasp, may I perish if I forego it!  Ha, sir!” turning from the almost fainting Clara to Sir Everard, who had listened with deep attention to the history of this extraordinary man;—­“for this,” and he thrust aside the breast of his hunting coat, exhibiting the scar of a long but superficial wound,—­“for this do you owe me a