“And Bess?” said I, for the girl’s affection had interested me, and the emotions of my burglar friend began to quicken in my breast.
“Pshaw!” said Sooterkins, “why canst not mind thine own affairs, and let the girl alone?”
“I must speak to her before I go, Gabe,” I replied. “What she is, I have made her, and it would break my heart to leave her thus.”
“Speak, then, fool, and be spry about it.”
“Bess,” said I, stealing my arm around the waist of the unfortunate girl, “I must be off for Portsmouth.”
“Are you going, Bill?” she said, in a low and tremulous voice, as she lifted her eyes anxiously to mine; and that expression cut me to the soul, keen as a knife, “I never shall see you again.”
“Hush, dearest, you must not speak so. We shall see each other soon, and live as happy days as ever.”
The eyes of the young girl became suffused with tears.
“Happy! No, Bill, I never shall know happiness again. I have been weak and ill of late. I’m dying, Bill, and I know it. Before you will dare to return here, I shall be laid, in the parish shell, cold enough in the grave of a pauper. Do you remember the little cottage near the Downs? Ah! those were my happy days. Then I was innocent, but you—but I wont speak of that, dearest, for I would not distress you.”
“In the sleep of death? There is no other composure for me. You are going, and the strings of my heart snap as I look upon you for the last time. Oh! through misery and crime, Bill—and we have been miserable and criminal—I have loved you, dearer than the light of heaven! But, dearest, if you do escape and return, quit this awful life, for the sake of her whom you once vowed never to abandon—quit this den of villainy, and for God’s sake, oh, never enter it again!”
The tears gushed from my eyes at this appeal, and my whole frame was shaken.
“Thank you, dearest. Take this little ring. You know its history. And now, for the last time, this kiss. Farewell!”
Her head sunk upon her breast. Bestowing an embrace upon her, I darted from her side, and sprang up the steps of the cellar. At the foot I paused for a moment. Bess had hidden her face in her lap, and the heaving of her breast, plainly perceptible through its thin covering, testified the agony of her spirit.