"
"You think too highly of my ability in this respect. There was a time,
Lucy, when such a design had not been so desperate, but now--"
"Oh, not so desperate now, uncle, uncle--I could not live--not a
moment--were he to perish in that dreadful manner. Have I no claim upon
your mercy--will you not do for me what you would do for money--what you
have done at the bidding of that dreadful wretch, Rivers? Nay, look not
away, I know it all--I know that you had the dagger of Colleton--that
you put it into the hands of the wretch who struck the man--that you saw
him strike--that you strove not to stop his hand. Fear you not I shall
reveal it? Fear you not?--but I will not--I can not! Yet this should be
enough to make you strive in this service. Heard you not, too, when lie
spoke and stopped my evidence, knowing that my word would have saved
him--rather than see me brought to the dreadful trial of telling what I
knew of that night--that awful night--when you both sought his life? Oh,
I could love him for this--for this one thing--were there nothing else
besides worthy of my love!"
The incident to which she referred had not been unregarded by the
individual she addressed, and while she spoke, his looks assumed a
meditative expression, and he replied as in soliloquy, and in broken
sentences:--
"Could I pass to the jail unperceived--gain admittance--then--but who
would grapple with the jailer--how manage that?--let me see--but
no--no--that is impossible!"
"What is impossible?--nothing is impossible in this work, if you will
but try.
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