"The hag! She would sell her own flesh and blood by weight and measure,"
he muttered to himself. "This is some plot of hers, I know well."
He put his hand to his forehead for a moment's space, seeming to reflect
on the course most advisable to be pursued. Ellen, perhaps unwisely,
interposed.
"Would it not be well to return?" she asked, timidly. "There is now no
hope of escaping; but I might yet reach home undiscovered."
"Return!" repeated her guide, with a look and smile from which she turned
away her face. "Have you forgotten your father and his misfortunes? No,
no, sweet Ellen: it is too late for such thoughts as these."
He took her hand, and led her towards the forest, in the rear of the
cottage. She would fain have resisted; but they were all alone, and the
attempt must have been both fruitless and dangerous. She therefore trod
with him a path so devious, so faintly traced, and so overgrown with
bushes and young trees, that only a most accurate acquaintance in his
early days could have enabled her guide to retain it. To him, however, it
seemed so perfectly familiar, that he was not once compelled to pause,
though the numerous windings soon deprived Ellen of all knowledge of the
situation of the cottage.
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