attendance on her, and submitted himself to
her whims. She wreaked upon him every
whim she had, or could invent. He bore it.
And the more he bore, the more he wanted
compensation in Money, and the more he
was resolved to have it.

"But, lo! Before he got it, she cheated
him. In one of her imperious states, she
froze, and never thawed again. She put her
hands to her head one night, uttered a cry,
stiffened, lay in that attitude certain hours,
and died. And he had got no compensation
from her in Money, yet. Blight and Murrain
on her! Not a penny.

"He had hated her throughout that second
pursuit, and had longed for retaliation on
her. He now counterfeited her signature to
an instrument, leaving all she had to leave,
to her daughter—ten years old then—to
whom the property passed absolutely, and
appointing himself the daughter's Guardian.
When He slid it under the pillow of the bed
on which she lay, He bent down in the deaf
ear of Death, and whispered: 'Mistress
Pride, I have determined a long time that,
dead or alive, you must make me compensation
in Money.'

"So, now there were only two left. Which
two were, He, and the fair flaxen-haired,
large-eyed foolish daughter, who afterwards
became the Bride.

"He put her to school. In a secret, dark,
oppressive, ancient house, he put her to school
with a watchful and unscrupulous woman.
'My worthy lady,' he said,' here is a mind
to be formed; will you help me to form it?'
She accepted the trust. For which she, too,
wanted compensation in Money, and had it.

"The girl was formed in the fear of him,
and in the conviction, that there was no
escape from him. She was taught, from the
first, to regard him as her future husband—
the man who must marry her— the destiny
that overshadowed her—the appointed
certainty that could never be evaded. The poor
fool was soft white wax in their hands, and
took the impression that they put upon her.
It hardened with time. It became a part of
herself. Inseparable from herself, and only
to be torn away from her, by tearing life
away from her.

"Eleven years she lived in the dark house
and its gloomy garden. He was jealous of
the very light and air getting to her, and
they kept her close. He stopped the wide
chimneys, shaded the little windows, left
the strong-stemmed ivy to wander where it
would over the house-front, the moss to
accumulate on the untrimmed fruit-trees in
the red-walled garden, the weeds to over-run
its green and yellow walks. He surrounded
her with images of sorrow and desolation.
He caused her to be filled with fears of the
place and of the stories that were told of it,
and then on pretext of correcting them,
to be left in it in solitude, or made to
shrink about it in the dark. When her mind
was most depressed and fullest of terrors,
then, he would come out of one of the hiding-
places from which he overlooked her, and
present himself as her sole resource.

"Thus, by being from her childhood the
one embodiment her life presented to her
of power to coërce and power to relieve,
power to bind and power to loose, the
ascendency over her weakness was secured. She
was twenty-one years and twenty-one days
old, when he brought her home to the gloomy
house, his half-witted, frightened, and
submissive Bride of three weeks.

"He had dismissed the governess by that
time— what he had left to do, he could
best do alone—and they came back, upon a
rainy night, to the scene of her long preparation.
'She turned to him upon the threshhold,
as the rain was dripping from the
porch, and said:

"'O sir, it is the Death-watch ticking for
me!'

"'Well!' he answered. 'And if it were?'

"'O sir!' she returned to him, 'look
kindly on me, and be merciful to me! I beg
your pardon. I will do anything you wish,
if you will only forgive me!'

"That had become the poor fool's constant
song: 'I beg your pardon,' and 'Forgive
me!'

"She was not worth hating; he felt
nothing but contempt for her. But, she had
long been in the way, and he had long been
weary, and the work was near its end, and
had to be worked out.

"'You fool,' he said. 'Go up the stairs!'

"She obeyed very quickly, murmuring,
'I will do anything you wish!' When he
came into the Bride's Chamber, having been
a little retarded by the heavy fastenings of
the great door (for they were alone in the
house, and he had arranged that the people
who attended on them should come and go
in the day), he found her withdrawn to the
furthest corner, and there standing pressed
against the paneling as if she would have
shrunk through it: her flaxen hair all wild
about her face, and her large eyes staring at
him in vague terror.

"'What are you afraid of? Come and sit
down by me.'

"'I will do anything you wish. I beg your
pardon, sir. Forgive me!' Her monotonous
tune as usual.

"'Ellen, here is a writing that you must
write out to-morrow, in your own hand. You
may as well be seen by others, busily engaged
upon it. When you have written it all fairly,
and corrected all mistakes, call in any two
people there may be about the house, and sign
your name to it before them. Then, put
it in your bosom to keep it safe, and when
I sit here again to-morrow night, give it
to me.'

"'I will do it all, with the greatest care.
I will do anything you wish.'

"'Don't shake and tremble, then.'