Springing to her feet with an eagerness and energy that was quite astonishing after her late prostration, she rushed forward to her uncle, and looked appealingly into his face, though she did not speak, while her hand grasped tenaciously his arm.
"What means the girl ?" exclaimed Munro, now apprehensive of some mental derangement.

She spoke, with a deep emphasis, but a single sentence:-- "It is written--thou shalt do no murder!" The solemn tone--the sudden, the almost fierce action--the peculiar abruptness of the apostrophe--the whitely-robed, the almost spiritual elevation of figure--all so dramatic--combined necessarily to startle and surprise; and, for a few moments, no answer was returned to the unlooked-for speech.

But the effect could not be permanent upon minds made familiar with the thousand forms of human and strong energies.
Munro, after a brief pause, replied-- "Who speaks of murder, girl?
Why this wild, this uncalled-for exhortation ?" "Not wild, not uncalled-for, uncle, but most necessary.

Wherefore would you pursue the youth, arms in your hands, hatred in your heart, and horrible threatenings upon your lips?
Why put yourself into the hands of this fierce monster, as the sharp instrument to do his vengeance and gratify his savage malignity against the young and the gentle?
If you would do no murder, not so he.

He will do it--he will make you do it, but he will have it done.