took him to her room, where their child was sleeping; and then she closed and even locked the door.
"No soul can hear us," said she; "now look me in the face, and tell me God's truth. Who and what are you?"
Griffith shuddered at this exordium; he made no reply.
Mercy went to a box and took out an old shirt of his,—the one he wore when he first came to the "Packhorse." She brought it to him and showed him "G. G." embroidered on it with a woman's hair. (Ryder's.)
"Here are your initials," said she; "now leave useless falsehoods; be a man, and tell me your real name."
"My name is Griffith Gaunt."
Mercy, sick at heart, turned her head away; but she had the resolution to urge him on. "Go on," said she, in an agonized whisper: "if you believe in God and a judgment to come, deceive me no more. The truth, I say! the truth!"
"So be it," said Griffith, desperately: "when I have told thee what a villain I am, I can die at thy feet, and then thou wilt forgive me.
"Who is Kate?" was all she replied.
"Kate is my wife."
"I thought her false; who could think any other? appearances were so strong against her: others thought so beside me. I raised my hand to kill her; but she never winced. I trampled on him I believed her paramour: I fled, and soon I lay a-dying in this house for her sake. I told thee she was dead. Alas! I thought her dead to me. I went back to our house (it is her house) sore against the grain, to get money for thee and thine. Then she cleared herself, bright as the sun, and pure as snow. She was all in black for me; she had put by money, against I should come to my senses and need it. I told her I owed a debt in Lancashire, a debt of gratitude as well as money: and so I did. How have I repaid it? The poor soul forced five hundred pounds on me. I had much ado to keep her from bringing it hither with her own hands. O, villain! villain! Then I thought to leave thee, and send thee word I was dead, and heap money on thee. Money! But how could I? thou wast my benefactress, my more than wife. All the riches of the world can make no return to thee. What, what shall I do? Shall I fly with thee and thy child across the seas? Shall I go back to her? No; the best thing I can do is to take this good pistol, and let the life out of my dishonorable carcass, and free two honest women from me by one resolute act."
In his despair he cocked the pistol; and, at a word from Mercy, this tale had ended.
But the poor woman, pale and trembling, tottered across the room, and took it out of his hand. "I would not harm thy body, nor thy soul," she gasped. "Let me draw my breath and think."
She rocked herself to and fro in silence.
Griffith stood trembling like a criminal before his judge.
It was long ere she could speak, for anguish. Yet when she did speak, it was with a sort of deadly calm.
"Go tell the truth to her, as you have done to me; and, if she can forgive you, all the better for you. I can never forgive you, nor yet can harm you. My child! my child! Thy father is our ruin. O, begone, man, or the sight of you will kill us both."
Then he fell at her knees; kissed, and wept over her cold hand; and, in his pity and despair, offered to cross the seas with her and her child, and so repair the wrong he had done her.
"Tempt me not," she sobbed. "Go, leave me! None here shall ever know thy crime, but she whose heart thou hast broken, and ruined her good name."
He took her in his arms, in spite of her resistance, and kissed her passionately; but, for the first time, she shuddered at his embrace; and that gave him the power to leave her.
He rushed from her, all but distract-
