with serpents; and always over her shoulder peers the wan face and
pitying eyes of a divine Regret.

The sun had gone down behind the dense pine forest stretching beyond
the prison, but the sky was a vast shifting flame of waning rose and
deepening scarlet, and the glow from the West still defied the shadows
gathering in the cell. Beryl was so still, that Mr. Dunbar feared she
had fainted from exhaustion.

He stepped to her side, and laid his hand on the bronzed head,
smoothing caressingly yet reverently the short, silky hair. Ah, the
unfathomable tenderness with which he bent over the only woman he ever
loved; the intolerable pain of the thought that after all he might lose
her. He heard the shuddering sob that broke from her overtaxed and
aching heart, and despite his jealous rage he felt unmanned. When she
raised her face, tears hung on her lashes.

"I will thank you, Mr. Dunbar, as long as I live, for this last and
greatest kindness. If I could tell you what this precious relic
represents to me, oh, if you knew! you would pity me indeed."

"Tell me. Trust me. God knows I would never betray your confidence, no
matter what it cost me."

It was a powerful temptation to divulge the truth, and her heart
whispered that Bertie's safety would be secured by removing all jealous
incentive to his pursuit; but she remembered the fair, sweet, heroic
woman who had dared her fiance's wrath in order to unbar those prison
doors; who had faithfully and delicately thrown over the convict the
mantle of her friendship; and the loyal soul of the prisoner strangled
its weakness.

Perishing in the desert where scorching sands stifled her, she had
surrendered to death, when love sprang to her side, lifted her into the
heavenly peace of dewy palms, and held to parched lips the sparkling
draught a glimpse of which electrified her. Would starvation entitle
her to drink? Over the head of pleading love stretched the arm of
stony-eyed duty, striking into the dust the crystal drops, withering
the palms; and following her stern beckon, the thirsty pilgrim re-trod
the sands of surrender, more intolerable than before, because the oasis
was still in sight. Duty! Rugged incorruptible Spartan dame, whose
inflexible mandate is ever: "With your shield, or on it."

Beryl put up her hand, drew his from her head to her lips, kissed it
softly.

"Good-bye, Mr. Dunbar. I promise you one thing. If I find I cannot
live, I will send for you. Upon the