a heap of straw, and left shuddering with cold and fear.  Alone, for days and weeks he remained in this prison, until despair seemed to dry up the very blood in his veins, and, after a desperate struggle to break through the bars of his narrow house, he sank down exhausted and ready to die.  Then came a new horror.  He had died, to all outward appearance, and was in his coffin.  He felt his body compressed, and gasped and panted for air in his narrow house of boards.  It was an awful moment.  Suddenly a voice came to his ear:  “Father! father!” It was the voice of his child—­of Kate.  How its tones thrilled through him!  How his heart leaped with the hope of deliverance!  “Father! dear father!”—­The call was renewed, but he could make no answer, for his tongue was powerless.  Again and again the call was repeated, yet he could utter no sound—­could make no sign.  Farther off, then, he heard his name called.  Horror! she had failed to discover him, and was about departing.  In the agony of the moment he awoke.  There was a hand laid gently upon him, and a voice said—­“Father! dear father! come!”

It was the voice of his child; the same voice that had penetrated his dreaming ear.

“Oh, Kate!” he exclaimed, eagerly; “is it indeed you?”

“Yes, father,” she answered; “and won’t you come home with me?”

The wretched man did not answer in words but arose immediately and went out with his daughter.

“Oh, what a dream I had, Kate!” said Mr. Ellis, as he left the door of the tavern; “and you came to me in my dream.”

His feelings were much excited, and he spoke with emotion.

“Did I, father?” replied the girl.  “And how did I come?  As a good angel to save you?”

“Waking, you have come to me as such,” answered the father after a brief silence, speaking more calmly, and as if to himself.

How wild a thrill shot through the frame of Kate at these words, so full of meaning to her; but she dared not trust herself to make an answer, lest she should do harm rather than good.  And so they walked, in silence, all the way home; Henry, who had accompanied his sister, keeping a short distance behind them, so that his father had no indication of his presence.

CHAPTER XXII.

How the hearts of the mother and her two oldest children trembled with hope and fear!  A marked change was apparent in Mr. Ellis when he came home with Kate.  He was sober, and very serious, but said nothing; and Mrs. Ellis deemed it prudent to say nothing to him.

On the next morning, he did not rise early.  Henry had eaten his breakfast and was away to his work, and Kate had gone to market to get something for dinner, when he got up and dressed himself.  Mrs. Ellis was ready for him with a good cup of coffee, a piece of hot toast, some broiled steak, and a couple of eggs.  She said little, but her tones were subdued and very kind.  Noticing that his hand trembled so that he spilled his coffee in raising his cup to his lips, (his custom was to get a glass of liquor before breakfast to steady his nerves,) she came and stood beside him, saying, as she did so—­“Let me hold your cup for you.”