“ ‘No—never!’
“The children burst into tears, and wept for a long time bitterly. The agitation of Belmont’s mind now became agonizing. It was his first wish to conceal what he felt as much as possible from his children; he therefore asked to be left alone. Mary and her sister retired from the room, but with slow and lingering steps. When left to himself, the father sunk down again, like one paralized, not to think but to feel. An hour afterward, Ella, his youngest daughter, came quietly in, and said,
“ ‘Papa, I wish you would see Catherine. She does nothing but cry all the while.’
“Feeling the necessity, at least for his children’s sake, of rousing himself under this terrible affliction, for which there was no healing balm, Mr. Belmont arose, and taking the hand of Ella, went with her to the chamber of his eldest child, now a tall, beautiful young girl, in her eighteenth year. Her face was turned toward the door when he entered. At a single glance he saw that it was exceedingly pale, had a strange expression, and was full of anguish. In a moment after it was buried beneath the bed-clothes, while the whole body of Catherine shivered as if in an ague fit. Sobs and deep moans of anguish followed. To all that the father could say, not a word of reply was given. Suddenly there flashed through his mind a dreadful suspicion, that caused him to clasp his forehead tightly with his hands, and stagger a few paces backward. Soon after he left the chamber, and retired to his own room to make an effort to think. But it was a vain effort—all the elements of his mind were in wild confusion. At one moment he would start up with a fierce imprecation on his lips, resolved to pursue the fugitives; but before reaching the door of his room, a thought of the utter hopelessness of his condition would cause him to droop, nerveless, into a chair, or sink with a groan upon the bed.
“For nearly the whole of the night that followed, Belmont paced, with slow and measured tread, the floor of his chamber. Toward morning, his mind became calmer and clearer. He was like a man suddenly pressed to the earth by a burden that seemed impossible to be borne, who had re-collected his strength, and risen with the burden upon his shoulders, feeling that though almost crushing in its weight, he could yet bear up under it. The first clear determination of his mind was to ascertain, if possible, the cause of Catherine’s strange distress. He had a heart-sickening dread of something that he dared not even confess to himself. He felt that the specious villain who could draw his wife from virtue, would not be one to hesitate on the question of sacrificing his child, if by any means he could get her into his power.
“Late in the morning he left his bed, and had nearly completed dressing himself when some one knocked at his door. On opening it, he found Ella, with the tears raining over her cheeks.
“ ‘Oh, papa!’ she exclaimed, ‘Come, quick! and see Catherine. I don’t know what’s the matter with her, but she says she is dying.’
“A cold shiver passed through every nerve of the unhappy man. He sprung away at the last word of Ella, and was quickly at the bed-side of his daughter. A great change had taken place since he saw her on the day before. Her face, that was pale then, was now of an ashy whiteness, but her eyes and lips had a calm expression.
“ ‘Papa,’ she said, in a voice that thrilled through the heart of the unhappy man, it was so inexpressibly mournful, ‘I do not think I can live long. I have a strange feeling here,’ and she laid her hand upon her heart. ‘If I have done wrong in any thing; if I have been betrayed into evil, I pray you forgive the innocence that suspected no wrong, and the weakness that could not endure in temptation.’
“ ‘Catherine, my dear child! why do you speak thus? What is it that you mean?’ asked her father. ‘Has that villain dared—’