An open opposition to his will, however, could not
be ventured upon; especially as she discovered, on looking round the
apartment, that, with the exception of the corpse, they were alone.
"Will you not attend your mother's funeral?" she asked, trembling, and
conscious that he would discover her fears.
"The dead must bury their dead," he replied. "I have brought my mother to
her grave,--and what can a son do more? This purse, however, will serve to
lay her in the earth, and leave something for the old hag. Whither is she
gone?" interrupted he, casting a glance round the room in search of the
old woman. "Nay, then, we must speedily to horse. I know her of old."
Thus saying, he threw the purse upon the table, and, without trusting
himself to look again towards the dead, conducted Ellen out of the
cottage. The first rays of the sun at that moment gilded the tallest trees
of the forest.
On looking towards the spot were the horses had stood, Ellen thought that
Providence, in answer to her prayers, had taken care for her deliverance.
They were no longer there,--a circumstance easily accounted for by the
haste with which the bridles had been thrown over the branch of the tree.
Her companion, however, imputed it to another cause.
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