Her long and beautiful hair fell floating over his face,
and mingled with his own, while her arms were wildly
clasped around him, in all the energy of frantic and
hopeless adjuration.
"Almighty God!" exclaimed the agitated young man, as he
made a feeble and fruitless effort to raise the form of
the unhappy woman; "what shall I say to impart comfort
to this suffering being? Oh, Mrs. Halloway," he pursued,
"I would willingly give all I possess in this world to
be the means of saving your unfortunate husband,--and as
much for his own sake as for yours would I do this; but,
alas! I have not the power. Do not think I speak without
conviction. My father has just been with me, and I have
pleaded the cause of your husband with an earnestness I
should scarcely have used had my own life been at stake.
But all my entreaties have been in vain. He is obstinate
in the belief my brother's strange absence, and Donellan's
death, are attributable only to the treason of Halloway.
Still there is a hope. A detachment is to leave the fort
within the hour, and Halloway is to accompany them. It
may be, my father intends this measure only with a view
to terrify him into a confession of guilt; and that he
deems it politic to make him undergo all the fearful
preliminaries without carrying the sentence itself into
effect.
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