SUSAN GRAY. 103

take pity on me, I will run this sword into my
heart.”

I would have spoken, but my sobs stifled my
voice. My mistress came up close to my chair,
and, bending her head down to me, said,
“<Come, come, my dear Susan, speak to the
Captain; he is a good gentleman, he loves you
most dearly, and, I assure you, he means no
harm.”

The Captain repeated her last words, using
many shocking oaths, to prove that they were
true. Yet still I did not speak. Then the
Captain threw himself down upon his knees,
hefore me, and prayed me to have pity on him.
Those were the words he used.

‘‘ Have pity on you!” repeated I, “ wiping
away my tears, and checking my sobs; “you
ask for pity, yet will not bestow it on others.
O! rise, for mercy’s sake, rise; and do not
humble yourself by kneeling to a poor servant.
O! that you would grant me the pity you seem
so humbly to ask. When you first knew me, I
had but few friends indeed; but now, O! my
God! I have not one on earth. I had then a
fair and spotless reputation—in what light am
I now thought of!”

So great was my anguish and grief of heart
when I spoke these words, that, had not my
mistress, who stood by me, caught me sudden-
ly in her arms, I should have dropped from
my chair.

The Captain, seeing me look very pale, was.
perhaps, frightened; for immediately he rove
from his knees, and, to give me air, opened the