ul verdict
they could give to the world?"

Only the hissing sound of the rain upon the glass pane of the carriage,
made reply.

They had reached the bridge, when a hysterical laugh startled the man,
who leaned back on the front seat, with his arms crossed tightly over a
heart throbbing with almost unendurable pain.

"To steal, to rob, to plunder. Branded for all time a thief, a rogue, a
murderess. I!--I--"

A passionate wail told the strain was broken: "I, my father's darling,
my father's Beryl! Hurled into a living tomb, herded with convicts,
with the vilest outcasts that disgrace the earth--this is worse than a
thousand deaths! It would have been so merciful to crush out the life
they mangled; but to doom me to the slow torture of this loathsome
grave, where death brings no release! To die is so easy, so blessed;
but to live--a convicted felon! O, my God! my God! Hast Thou indeed
forsaken me?"

In the appalling realization of her fate, she rocked to and fro for a
moment only, fiercely shaken by the horror of a future never before
contemplated. Then the proud soul stifled its shuddering sigh, lifted
its burden of shame, silently struggled up its awful Via Crucis. Mute
and still, she leaned back in the corner of the carriage.

"I could have saved you, but you would not accept deliverance. You
thwarted every effort, tied the hands that might have set you free; and
by your own premeditated course throughout the trial, deliberately
dragged this doom down upon your head. You counted the cost, and you
elected, chose of your own free will to offer yourself as a sacrifice,
to the law, for the crime of another. You are your own merciless fate,
decreeing self-immolation. You were willing to die, in order to save
that man's life; and you can certainly summon fortitude to endure five
years' deprivation of his society; sustained by the hope that having
thereby purchased his security, you may yet reap the reward your heart
demands, reunion with its worthless, degraded idol. I have watched,
weighed, studied you; searched every stray record of your fair young
life, found the clear pages all pure; and I have doubted, marvelled
that you, lily-hearted, lily-souled, lily-handed, could cast the pearl
of your love down in the mire, to be trampled by swinish feet."

The darkness of the City of Dis that seemed to brood under the wings of
the stormy night, veiled Beryl's face; and her silence goaded him
beyond the limits of prudence,