sensibility a sensation of horror: what then, at this moment, must have been its effect on Agnes, who was trembling for her life, for that of her child, and looking in vain for a protector around the still, solemn waste! Breathless with apprehension, she stopped as the maniac gained upon her, and, motionless and speechless, awaited the consequence of his approach.

"Woman!" said he in a hoarse, hollow tone,—"Woman! do you see them? Do you see them?"—"Sir! pray what did you say, sir?" cried Agnes in a tone of respect, and curtsying as she spoke,—for what is so respectful as fear?—"I can't see them," resumed he, not attending to her, "I have escaped them! Rascals! cowards! I have escaped them!" and then he jumped and clapped his hands for joy.

Agnes, relieved in some measure from her fears, and eager to gain the poor wretch's favour, told him that she rejoiced at his escape from the rascals, and hoped that they would not overtake him: but while she spoke he seemed wholly inattentive, and, jumping as he walked, made his fetter clank in horrid exultation.

The noise at length awoke the child, who, seeing a strange and indistinct object before him, and hearing a sound so unusual, screamed violently, and hid his face in his mother's bosom.

"Take it away! take it away!" exclaimed the maniac,—"I do not like children."—Agnes, terrified at the thought of what might happen, tried to sooth the trembling boy to rest, but in vain; the child still screamed, and the angry agitation of the maniac increased.—"Strangle it! strangle it!" he cried—"do it this moment, or——"

Agnes, almost frantic with terror, conjured the unconscious boy, if he valued his life, to cease his cries; and then the next moment she conjured the wretched man to spare her child: but, alas! she spoke to those incapable of understanding her,—a child and a madman!—The terrified boy still shrieked, the lunatic still threatened; and, clenching his fist, seized the left arm of Agnes, who with the other attempted to defend her infant from his fury; when, at the very moment that his fate seemed inevitable, a sudden gale of wind shook the leafless branches of the surrounding trees; and the madman, fancying that the noise proceeded from his pursuers, ran off with his former rapidity.

Immediately the child, relieved from the sight and the sound which alarmed it, and exhausted by the violence of its cries, sunk into a sound sleep on the throbbing bosom of its mother. But, alas! Agnes knew that this was but a temporary escape:—the maniac might return, and again the child might wake in terrors:—and scarcely had the thought passed her mind when she saw him coming back; but, as he walked slowly, the noise was not so great as before.

"I hate to hear children cry," said he as he approached.—"Mine is quiet now," replied Agnes: then, recollecting that she had some food in her pocket, she offered some to the stranger, in order to divert his attention from the child. He snatched it from her hand instantly, and devoured it with terrible voraciousness; but again he exclaimed, "I do not like children;—if you trust them they will betray you:" and Agnes offered him food again, as if to bribe him to spare her helpless boy.—"I had a child once,—but she is dead, poor soul!" continued he, taking Agnes by the arm, and leading her gently forward.—"And you loved her very tenderly, I suppose?" said Agnes, thinking that the loss of his child had occasioned his malady; but, instead of answering her, he went on:—"They said that she ran away from me with a lover,—but I knew they lied; she was good, and would not have deserted the father who doted on her.—Besides, I saw her funeral myself.—Liars, rascals, as they are!—Do not tell any one: I got away from them last night, and am now going to visit her grave."

A death-like sickness, an apprehension so horrible as to deprive her almost of sense, took possession of the soul of Agnes. She eagerly tried to obtain a sight of the stranger's face, the features of which the darkness had hitherto prevented her from distinguishing: she however tried in vain, as his hat was pulled over his forehead, and his chin rested on his bosom. But they had now nearly gained the end of the forest, and day was just breaking; and Agnes, as soon as they entered the open plain, seized the arm of the madman to force him to look towards her,—for speak to him she could not. He felt, and perhaps resented the importunate pressure of her hand—for he turned hastily round—when, dreadful confirmation of her fears, Agnes beheld her father!!!

It was indeed Fitzhenry, driven to madness by his daughter's desertion and disgrace!!

After the elopement of Agnes, Fitzhenry entirely neglected his business, and thought and talked of nothing but the misery which he experienced. In vain did his friends represent to him the necessity of his making amends, by increased diligence, for some alarming losses in trade which he had lately sustained. She, for whom alone he toiled, had deserted him—and ruin had no terrors for him.—"I was too proud of her," he used mournfully to repeat,—"and Heaven has humbled me even in her by whom I offended."

Month after month elapsed, and no intelligence of Agnes.—Fitzhenry's dejection increased, and his affairs became more and more involved: at length, absolute and irretrievable bankruptcy was become his portion, when he learned, from authority not to be doubted, that Agnes was living with Clifford as his acknowledged mistress.—This was the death-stroke to his reason: and the only way in which his friends (relations he had none, or only distant ones) could be of any further service to him was, by procuring him admission into a private madhouse in the neighbourhood.

Of his recovery little hope was entertained.—The constant theme of his ravings was his daughter;—sometimes he bewailed her as dead; at other times he complained of her as ungrateful:—but so complete was the overthrow which his reason had received, that he knew no one, and took no notice of those whom friendship or curiosity led to his cell: yet he was always meditating his escape; and, though ironed in consequence of it, the night he met Agnes, he had, after incredible difficulty and danger, effected his purpose.

But to return to Agnes, who, when she beheld in her insane companion her injured father, the victim probably of her guilt, let fall her sleeping child, and, sinking on the ground, extended her arms towards Fitzhenry, articulating in a faint voice, "O God! My father!" then prostrating herself at his feet, she clasped his knees in an agony too great for utterance.

At the name of 'father,' the poor maniac started, and gazed on her earnestly, with savage wildness, while his whole frame became convulsed; then, rudely disengaging himself from her embrace, he ran from her a few paces, and dashed himself on the ground in all the violence of phrensy. He raved; he tore his hair; he screamed, and uttered the most dreadful execrations; and, with his teeth shut and his hands clenched, he repeated the word 'father,' and said the name was mockery to him.

Agnes, in mute and tearless despair, beheld the dreadful scene: in vain did her affrighted child cling to her gown, and in its half-formed accents entreat to be taken to her arms again: she saw, she heeded nothing but her father; she was alive to nothing but her own guilt and its consequences; and she awaited with horrid composure the cessation of Fitzhenry's phrensy, or the direction of its fury towards her child.

At last, she saw him fall down exhausted and motionless, and tried to hasten to him; but she was unable to move, and reason and life seemed at once forsaking her, when Fitzhenry suddenly started up, and approached her.—Uncertain as to his purpose, Agnes caught her child to her bosom, and, falling again on her knees, turned on him her almost closing eyes; but his countenance was mild,—and gently patting her forehead, on which hung the damps of approaching insensibility,