"'I will try my utmost not to do it—if
you will only forgive me!'

"Next day, she sat down at her desk, and
did as she had been told. He often passed
in and out of the room, to observe her, and
always saw her slowly and laboriously writing:
repeating to herself the words she copied,
in appearance quite mechanically, and without
caring or endeavouring to comprehend
them, so that she did her task. He saw her
follow the directions she had received, in all
particulars; and at night, when they were
alone again in the same Bride's Chamber,
and he drew his chair to the hearth, she
timidly approached him from her distant seat,
took the paper from her bosom, and gave it
into his hand.

"It secured all her possessions to him, in
the event of her death. He put her before
him, face to face, that he might look at her
steadily;  and he asked her, in so many plain
words, neither fewer nor more, did she know
that?

"There were spots of ink upon the bosom
of her white dress, and they made her face
look whiter and her eyes look larger as she
nodded her head. There were spots of ink
upon the hand with which she stood before
him, nervously plaiting and folding her white
skirts.

"He took her by the arm, and looked her,
yet more closely and steadily, in the face.
'Now, die! I have done with you.'

"She shrunk, and uttered a low, suppressed
cry.

"'I am not going to kill you. I will not
endanger my life for yours. Die!'

"He sat before her in the gloomy Bride's
Chamber, day after day, night after night,
looking the word at her when he did not
utter it. As often as her large unmeaning
eyes were raised from the hands in which she
rocked her head, to the stern figure, sitting
with crossed arms and knitted forehead, in
the chair, they read in it, 'Die!' When she
dropped asleep in exhaustion, she was called
back to shuddering consciousness, by the
whisper, 'Die!' When she fell upon her old
entreaty to be pardoned, she was answered,
'Die!' When she had out-watched and out-
suffered the long night, and the rising sun
flamed into the sombre room, she heard it
hailed with, 'Another day and not dead?—
Die!'

"Shut up in the deserted mansion, aloof
from all mankind, and engaged alone in such
a struggle without any respite, it came to
this—that either he must die, or she. He
knew it very well, and concentrated his
strength against her feebleness. Hours upon
hours he held her by the arm when her arm
was black where he held it, and bade her Die!

"It was done, upon a windy morning,
before sunrise. He computed the time to be
half-past four; but, his forgotten watch had
run down, and he could not be sure. She
had broken away from him in the night, with
loud and sudden cries—the first of that kind
to which she had given vent—and he had
had to put his hands over her mouth. Since
then, she had been quiet in the corner of the
paneling where she had sunk down; and he
had left her, and had gone back with his
folded arms and his knitted forehead to his
chair.

"Paler in the pale light, more colourless
than ever in the leaden dawn, he saw her
coming, trailing herself along the floor
towards him—a white wreck of hair, and dress,
and wild eyes, pushing itself on by an
irresolute and bending hand.

"'O, forgive me! I will do anything. O,
sir, pray tell me I may live!'

"'Die!'

"'Are you so resolved? Is there no hope
for me?'

"'Die!'

"Her large eyes strained themselves with
wonder and fear; wonder and fear changed
to reproach; reproach to blank nothing. It
was done. He was not at first so sure it was
done, but that the morning sun was hanging
jewels in her hair—he saw the diamond,
emerald, and ruby, glittering among it in
little points, as he stood looking down at her
—when he lifted her and laid her on her
bed.

"She was soon laid in the ground. And now
they were all gone, and he had compensated
himself well.

"He had a mind to travel. Not that he
meant to waste his Money, for he was a
pinching man and liked his Money dearly
(liked nothing else, indeed), but, that he
had grown tired of the desolate house and
wished to turn his back upon it and have
done with it. But, the house was worth
Money, and Money must not be thrown away.
He determined to sell it before he went.
That it might look the less wretched and
bring a better price, he hired some labourers
to work in the overgrown garden; to cut out
the dead wood, trim the ivy that drooped in
heavy masses over the windows and gables,
and clear the walks in which the weeds were
growing mid-leg high.

"He worked, himself, along with them.
He worked later than they did, and, one
evening at dusk, was left working alone, with
his bill-hook in his hand. One autumn
evening, when the Bride was five weeks
dead.

"'It grows too dark to work longer,' he
said to himself, 'I must give over for the
night.'

"He detested the house, and was loath to
enter it. He looked at the dark porch
waiting for him like a tomb, and felt that it
was an accursed house. Near to the porch,
and near to where he stood, was a tree whose
branches waved before the old bay-window
of the Bride's Chamber, where it had been
done. The tree swung suddenly, and made
him start. It swung again, although the