"You are dangerously wounded, father. Alas! I have done what I can to relieve you; but I am only a poor ignorant girl, and perhaps what I have attempted was not the right treatment."
Red Cedar turned to her, and an expression of tenderness flashed in his eyes.
"You love me, then?" he said.
"Is it not my duty to do so, father?"
The bandit made no reply; the smile we know played round his Violet lips.
"Alas! I have been seeking you a long time, father; this night chance enabled me to find you again."
"Yes, you are a good girl, Ellen. I have only you left now. I know not what has become of my sons. Oh," he said with a start of fury, "that wretch Ambrosio is the cause of all; had it not been for him, I should still be at the Paso del Norte, in the forests of which I had made myself master."
"Think no more of that, father; your condition demands the greatest calmness; try and sleep for some hours—that will do you good."
"Sleep," the bandit said, "can I sleep? No," he added with a movement of repulsion, "I would sooner keep awake; when my eyes are closed, I see.... No, no, I must not sleep."
He did not finish his sentence. Ellen gazed on him with pity, mingled with terror. The bandit, weakened by the loss of blood and the fever produced by his wounds, felt something to which he had hitherto been a stranger—it was fear. Perhaps his conscience evoked the gnawing remorse of his crimes.