himself alongside of the younger boy, Humphries took the hand of the mother into his own, and gazed over upon her face. Frampton then gave him a look—a single look; and as their eyes met, those of Humphries intuitively filled with water. The bereaved wretch, as he saw this, laughed sneeringly and shook his head. There was no misunderstanding the rebuke. It clearly scorned the sympathy, and called for the sterner tribute of revenge. The elder son then carried on a brief conversation in an under tone with the lieutenant, which was only audible in part to Singleton, who sat on the root of a tree opposite. He gave the particulars of his mother's removal in this dialogue, and of the resolute doggedness with which his father had hitherto resisted the burial of the body.
"It must be buried at once," said Humphries more earnestly to the youth. The father heard him, and glaring upon him with the eye of a tiger, the desolate man bent forward and placed his hand resolutely upon the body, as if determined not to suffer its removal.
"Nay, but it must, Frampton;—there's no use in keeping it here: and, indeed, there's no keeping it much longer. Hear to reason, man, and be persuaded."
The person addressed shook his head, and maintained his hold upon the corse for a moment in silence; but all on a sudden, half rising to his feet, he shook his fists fiercely at the speaker, while his expression was so full of ferocity, that Humphries prepared for, and every moment expected, an attack.
"You have lied to me, Humphries!" he exclaimed with difficulty, as if through his clenched teeth.—"You have lied to me;—you said he should be here,—where is he? why have you not brought him?"
"Who? brought who?" demanded the other earnestly.
"Who!"—and as the maniac half shrieked out the word in sneering repetition, he pointed to the body, while he cried, with a fierce laugh, between each pause in his words—"who!—did he not strike her—strike her to the ground—trample upon her body—great God!—upon her—my wife?" And, as the accumulated picture of his wife's injuries rose up before his mind while he spoke, his speech left him, and he choked, till his face grew livid
