said he looking darkly at the clergyman, “there was no one place so secret — no high place nor lowly place, where thou couldst have escaped me — save on this very scaffold!”

“Thanks be to Him who hath led me hither!” answered the minister.

Yet he trembled, and turned to Hester, with an expression of doubt and anxiety in his eyes, not the less evidently betrayed, that there was a feeble smile upon his lips.

“Is not this better,” murmured he, “than what we dreamed of in the forest?”

“I know not!

I know not!” she hurriedly replied “Better? Yea; so we may both die, and little Pearl die with us!”