Let us speak of our future hope--if hope there may be for me, after the stern sentence which your lips uttered in part even now." "It was for you--for your safety, believe me, Mark, that I spoke; my own heart was wrung with the language of my lips--the language of my cooler thought.

I spoke only for your safety and not for myself.

Could--I again repeat--could this deed be undone--could you be free from the reproach and the punishment, I would be content, though the strings of my heart cracked with its own doom, to forego all claim upon you--to give you up--to give up my own hope of happiness for ever." Her words were passionate, and at their close her head sunk upon his shoulder, while her tears gushed forth without restraint, and in defiance of all her efforts.

The heart of the woodman was deeply and painfully affected, and the words refused to leave his lips, while a kindred anguish shook his manly frame, and rendered it almost a difficulty with him to sustain the slight fabric of hers.

With a stern effort, however, he recovered himself, and reseating her upon the bank from which, in the agitation of the moment, they had both arisen, he endeavored to soothe her spirit, by unfolding his plan of future life.
"My present aim is the nation--I shall cross the Chestatee river to-morrow, and shall push at once for the forest of Etowee, and beyond the Etowee river.