Ellen Walton | Page 3

love only you."
"Why, then, seek the society of this other?"
"I have sworn it, as I have already told you; and this oath must be
performed. Will you aid me or not?"
"I cannot. I pray you again, do not tempt me!"
"But you must help me. I cannot do without you."
"For God's sake say no more! Every feeling of my heart revolts at the
thought! Just think, for a moment, what it is you ask of me! Think what
would be my feelings! Love is incompatible with your request. How
can I see you debase yourself and me by such an act?"
"I only desire you to decide between this and a worse debasement.
Which will you choose?"
"What mean you?"
"That I will only marry you on condition you will accede to my present
proposition."
"Have you not told me, time and again, that you looked upon me as
your wife by the highest of all laws, the laws of nature and of God?
How, then, can you talk of not making me legally yours, in the sight of
men?"

"I will, I tell you, if you will do as I wish in the present instance. Come,
be kind, be gentle and loving, as you ever have been, and we will soon
be completely happy by acknowledging our love before men, at the
altar."
"This again! Oh, tempter, betray me not!"
"You have your choice. I will never marry you if you refuse my present
offer, NEVER! Whose, then, will be the shame? Which will you be, an
honorable wife, or a despised offcast? Your destiny is in your own
hands, make your election."
"Oh, God! I am in your power!"
"Then you consent?"
"What assurance have I that this promise will make me your wife?
Have you not promised the same thing scores of times?"
"Require any form of obligation, and I will give it; as I mean what I say,
make your own conditions."
"Give me a written promise."
He gave it as she dictated it:
"I hereby promise to marry Eliza Fleming within one month from this
12th day of April, 1786. This promise I most solemnly give, calling on
heaven to witness it, and if I fail in its performance, may the curses of
God rest upon my soul in this world and in the world to come.
"LOUIS DURANT."
"That will do," she said.
"And I may depend on you?"
"Yes; I am no longer free. But mind, all must be done quietly and kept
a profound secret."

"Leave that to me; I will be responsible for the result."
Thus was a net woven for an unsuspecting victim. Who was she, and
what the cause for this unrelenting and revengeful feeling on the part of
Durant? Time must show.
CHAPTER II.
A VILLAIN UNMASKED.
In a beautiful district of the "Old Dominion," bordering on the
Rappahannock, there lived, just previous to the time of the opening of
our story, a planter, who had once been wealthy, but whose princely
fortune had become much reduced by indiscriminate kindness.
Possessed of a noble heart, a generous disposition, and the finest
sympathies, he could never find it in his heart to say "no" to an
application for assistance. Thousands had thus gone to pay debts of
security; and, at last, he resolved to move to the West, as a means of
retrieving his affairs, as well as to cut loose from the associations
which were rapidly diminishing the remains of his wealth.
This planter, whom we shall call General Walton, (the last name
assumed, the title one given him by common consent,) had one son,
and an only daughter, the former twenty-one, the latter eighteen, at the
time we wish to introduce them to the reader's notice. Both were
worthy, the one as a man, the other as a woman. He was noble,
intellectual, manly; she was beautiful, accomplished, intelligent; both
possessed those higher and nobler qualities of mind and heart which
dignify and ally it to divinity.
Ellen Walton, an heiress, jointly with her brother, in prospective, and
reputed the wealthiest fair one in all the district, (the world don't always
know the true situation of a man's affairs,) was not left to pine away in
solitude with the dismal prospect in view of becoming that dreaded
personage--an old maid. No, she was beset with admirers; some loving
her, some her wealth, and some both. To all but one she turned a deaf
ear; that one, though the least presuming of the many, and too diffident
to urge his claim until impelled by the irresistable violence of his love,

possessed, unknown to himself, a magnetic power over the heart of the
fair being. Many were the doubts and fears of both--natural
accompaniments of true, sincere, devoted,