The gentler spirit of the maiden's sex was uppermost, and the sad story of his crime, which at their last meeting had been told her, lay with heavy influence at her heart.

She was a gentle creature, and though dwelling in a wilderness, such is the prevailing influence upon female character, of the kind of education acquirable in the southern,--or, we may add, and thus perhaps furnish the reason for any peculiarity in this respect, the slave-holding states--that she partook in a large degree of that excessive delicacy, as well of spirit as of person, which, while a marked characteristic of that entire region, is apt to become of itself a disease, exhibiting itself too frequently in a nervousness and timidity that unfit its owner for the ruder necessities of life, and permit it to abide only under its more serene and summer aspects.

The tale of blood, and its awful consequences, were perpetually recurring to her imagination.

Her fancy described and dwelt upon its details, her thoughts wove it into a thousand startling tissues, until, though believing his crime unpremeditated, she almost shrank from the embrace of her lover, because of the blood so recently upon his hands.

Placing her beside him upon the seat he had occupied, he tenderly rebuked her gloomy manner, while an inward and painful consciousness of its cause gave to his voice a hesitating tremor, and his eye, heretofore unquailing at any glance, no longer bold, now shrank downcast before the tearful emphasis of hers.
"You have come, Kate--come, according to your promise, yet you wear not loving looks.