The poor girl on seeing him a second time fell back and moaned as if she had expired.

The villain stood looking over her in a spirit of the most malignant triumph.
"It is done now," said he; "there she lies--a corpse--and I am now master of my twelve hundred a year." He had scarcely uttered the words when he felt a powerful hand grasp him by the shoulder, and send him with dreadful violence to the other side of the room.

On turning round to see who the person was who had actually twirled him about like an infant, he found the large, but benevolent-looking stranger standing at Alice's bedside, his finger upon the pulse and his eyes intently fixed upon her apparently lifeless features.

He then turned round to Woodward, and exclaimed in a voice of thunder,-- "She is not dead, villain, and will not die on this occasion: begone, and leave the room." "Villain!" replied Woodward, putting his hand to his sword: "I allow no man to call me villain unpunished." The stranger contemptuously and indignantly waved his hand to him, as much as to say--presently, presently, but not now.

The truth is, the loud tones of his voice had caused Alice to open her eyes, and instead of trading the dreaded being before her, there stood the symbol of benevolence and moral power, with his mild, but clear and benignant eye smiling upon her.
"My dear child," said he, "look upon me and give me your hands.