"Fly, then,—fly this moment," I cried. "What madness! to linger in the midst of danger and disgrace!"
"Alas! my daughter, I am penniless. I had laid aside a large sum, sufficient for the emergency; but a wretch robbed me of all, only two nights since. Humiliating as it is, I must turn beggar to my child. Your husband is a Dives; I, the Lazarus, who am perishing at his gate."
"Ask him. He is noble and generous. He will fill your purse with gold, and aid you to escape. Go to him at once. You know not his princely heart."
"Never! On you alone I depend. I will not ask a favor of man, to save my soul from perdition. Girl! have you no power over the wealth that must be rusting in your coffers? Are you not trusted with the key to your household treasures?"
"Do you think I would take his gold clandestinely?" I asked, glowing with indignation, and recoiling from the expression of his eager, burning eye. We were walking slowly during this exciting conversation; and, cold as it was, the moisture gathered on my brow. "Here is a purse, given me for a holier purpose. Take it, and let me go."
"Thank you,—bless you, my child! but this will only relieve present necessity. It will not carry me in safety to distant climes. Bless you! but take it back, take it back. I can only meet my doom!"
"I will go to my husband!" I exclaimed with sudden resolution; "I will tell him all, and he, and he alone shall aid you. I will not wrong him by acting without his knowledge. You have no right to endanger my life-long peace. You have destroyed my mother; must her child too be sacrificed?"
"I see there is but one path of escape," he cried, snatching a pistol from his breast, and turning the muzzle to his heart. "Fool, dolt, idiot that I am! I dreamed of salvation from a daughter's hand, but I have forfeited a father's name, a father's affection. Gabriella, you might save me, but I blame you not. Do not curse me, though I fill a felon's grave;—better that than the dungeon—the scaffold."
"What would you do?" I whispered hoarsely, seizing his arm with spasmodic grasp.
"Die, before I am betrayed."