t were from
the darkness and silence of the grave, the secret of that stormy night,
when unseen powers had solemnly covenanted in defence of trusting
innocence.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

On Saturday the regulations of prison discipline reduced the working
hours much below the daily quota, and at two o'clock the ringing of the
tower bell announced that the busy convicts of the various industrial
rooms were allowed leisure during the remainder of the afternoon, to
give place to the squad of sweepers and scrubbers, who flooded the
floors and scoured the benches.

June heat had followed fast upon the balmy breath of May, and though
the air at dawn was still iced with crystal dew, the sun that shone
through the open windows of the little chapel, burned fiercely on the
unpainted pine seats, the undraped reading-desk of the pulpit, the
tarnished gilt pipes of the cabinet organ within the chancel railing.

On one of the front benches sat Iva Le Bougeois, with a pair of
crutches resting beside her on the arm of the seat, and her hands
folded in her lap. Recovering slowly from the paralysis resulting from
diphtheria, she had followed Beryl into the chapel, and listened to the
hymns the latter had played and sung. The glossy black head was bent in
abject despondency upon her breast, and tears dripped over the smooth
olive cheeks, but no sound escaped the trembling mouth, once so red and
riotous, now drawn into curves of passionate sorrow; and the topaz
gleams that formerly flickered in her sullen hazel eyes were drowned in
the gloom of dejection. For her, memory was an angel of wrath, driving
her into the hideous Golgotha of the past, where bloody spectres
gibbered; the present was a loathsome death in life, the future a
nameless torturing horror. Helpless victim of her own outraged
conscience, she seemed at times sinking into mental apathy more
pitiable than that which had seized her physically; and the only solace
possible, she found in the encouraging words uttered by the voice that
had prayed for her during that long night of mortal agony, in the
gentle pressure of the soft hand that often guided her tottering
footsteps.

The organ stops had been pushed back, the musical echoes vibrated no
longer; and the bare room, filled with garish sunshine, was so still
that the drowsy droning of a bee high up on the dusty sash of the
barred window, became monotonously audible.

Within the chancel and to the right of the pulpit, a