"'Massingberd Heath,' cried I, throwing myself at his feet, 'for God's sake have mercy upon her; it is not her fault. She knew no more than you of all these things. Look how ill and pale she is—you above all men should have pity on her wretched condition. Oh leave her with us, leave my little sister here, and neither she nor we will ever trouble you, ever come near you. It shall be just the same as though you had never set eyes upon us; it shall indeed! Oh, you would not, could not surely be cruel to such a one as she.'
"I pointed to her as she stood clinging to her father's arm as much for support as in appeal, so beautiful, so pitiful, so weak; a spectacle to move a heart of stone.
"'Could I not be cruel,' returned he, with a grating laugh, 'ay, to even such a one as she? Ask her—ask her.'
"There was no occasion to put the question; you saw the answer in her shrinking form, her trembling limbs: his every word fell upon her like a blow.
"'She has not yet known, however, what I can be to my Wife,' continued he. 'Come, my pretty one, come.'
"'She shall not,' cried my father, vehemently; 'it shall never be in his power to hurt her.'
"'What! and I her husband?' exclaimed the other, mockingly. 'Both one until death us do part! Not come?'
"'He will kill her,' murmured my father; 'her blood will be on my head.'
"'Are you coming, wife?' cried Massingberd Heath, in a terrible voice; he stepped forward, and grasped her slender wrist with fingers of steel. Morris and my father rushed forward, but the man had swung her behind him, placing himself between her and them, and at the same instant he had taken from his pocket a life-preserver—he carries it to this day—armed with which he was a match for five such men. 'And now,' cried he, 'what man shall stop me from doing what I will with my own?"'
"'I!' exclaimed a sudden voice, and with the word some dark mass launched itself so violently against the throat of Massingberd Heath that the giant toppled and fell; upon his huge breast, knife in hand, knelt Stanley Carew, his eyes gleaming with hate, his lithe body working like a panther's. He was not hesitating, not he, he was only drinking in a delicious draught of revenge, before he struck.