Becoming impatient, however, of a colloquy which, as he saw that it had not its use, and was only productive of mortification to one of the parties, he thought only prudent to terminate, he advanced toward them; and his tread, for the first time, warned them of his presence.
With an effort which seemed supernatural, the dying woman raised herself with a sudden start in the bed, and her eyes glared upon him with a threatening horror, and her lips parting, disclosed the broken and decayed teeth beneath, ineffectually gnashing, while her long, skinny fingers warned him away.

All this time she appeared to speak, but the words were unarticulated, though, from the expression of every feature, it was evident that indignation and reproach made up the entire amount of everything she had to express.

The outlaw was not easily influenced by anger so impotent as this; and, from his manner of receiving it, it appeared that he had been for some time accustomed to a reception of a like kind from the same person.

He approached the young girl, who had now risen from her knees, and spoke to her in words of comparative kindness:-- "Well, Ellen, you have had an alarm, but I am glad to see you have suffered no injury.

How happened the fire ?" The young woman explained the cause of the conflagration, and narrated in brief the assistance which had been received from the stranger.
"But I was so terrified, Guy," she added, "that I had not presence of mind enough to thank him." "And what should be the value of your spoken thanks, Ellen?
The stranger, if he have sense, must feel that he has them, and the utterance of such things had better be let alone.