“You are not powerless—you are the daughter of Ralph Milbourne, the niece of Ireton. Through these men you can do everything. Oh, Helen, Helen! do not waste the precious moments in vain words, but remember the fate from which he saved you, and plead for him with those who will else be his murderers!”

Helen scarcely breathed till she found herself in the presence of her uncle, who was in deep consultation with her father and Sir Richard Warden, and, flinging herself at the feet of Ireton, she preferred her suit with hysterical sobs.—He listened to her in stern silence.—She turned to her father with clasped hands and streaming eyes, and exclaimed:

“Will you not speak, my father, one word, one little word, to preserve his life who rescued your child from a fate more dreadful than death?”

“It would be useless, Helen,” he replied; “he is not my prisoner—it rests with your uncle Ireton.”

“He is the captive of my bow and spear!” exclaimed Ireton. “I hold his death-warrant in my hand, which is directed to me for execution, but—you can ransom him, if you will.” He glanced significantly at Sir Richard Warden, who stood, with folded arms, gazing intently upon the weeping supplicant. Helen shuddered, and looked imploringly at her father.

“There is no other alternative,” observed Ralph Milbourne.

“None?” said Helen, turning to Ireton.

“None,” he replied, “but your consenting to become the wife of the brave Sir Richard Warden; on which condition I will allow your hand to cancel the death-warrant of the malignant Edward Dagworth.”

He held it towards her as he spoke. One glance upon that fatal instrument was sufficient to decide the wavering purpose of Helen Milbourne.

“He shall live!” she said, tearing the warrant as she spoke; “he will not be more lost to me than he is now, when I am the wife of another; and I—I—I shall have saved him. But,” added she, turning once more to her uncle, “you must engage for his liberty as well.”

“I will be your uncle’s surety for that, madam,” said Sir Richard Warden.

“And I must see him once more.”

“To what purpose?” said her father.

She covered her face, and burst into a flood of tears.

Her affianced bridegroom took her cold hand, and led her to an apartment barred and guarded, at the door of which, on the bare floor, with dishevelled hair, was seated Lady Alice Dagworth in her sable garments. She started from her recumbent posture, and, grasping Helen’s arm with a convulsive pressure, gasped out, “My son! my son!”

“I have saved him,” said Helen, in a broken voice.

“May the God of mercy bless and reward you, then,” murmured Lady Alice, snatching her to her bosom with a wild burst of weeping.

At a sign from Sir Richard Warden, the bolts were withdrawn, and Helen Milbourne and her lost lover looked upon each other once more. His noble form was war-worn and attenuated by famine. Her cheek was faded by the canker-worm of sorrow, the lustre of her eyes had been dimmed by tears, and were still red and swollen from excessive weeping; in the impress of that unutterable woe which appeared imprinted on her agonised brow, Edward Dagworth read, as he supposed, his death doom. Coldness,