.

"Knowing that your detention here has necessarily forfeited all the
industrial engagements by which you maintained yourself, before you
came South, I have been requested to ask your acceptance of this purse,
which contains sufficient money to defray your expenses until you
resume your art labors. It is an offering from your twelve jurors."

"No--no. I could never touch it. Tell them for me that I am not
vindictive. I know they did the best they could for me, in view of the
evidence. Tell them I am grateful for their offer, but I cannot accept
it. I--"

"You imagine I am one of the generous contributors? Be easy; I have not
offered you a cent. I am merely the bearer of the gift, or rather the
attempt at restitution. Your refusal will grieve them, and add to the
pangs of regret that very justly afflict them at present."

"I have some money which Doctor Grantlin collected for my Christmas
card. He retained only a portion of the amount, and sent me the
remainder. Mr. Singleton keeps it for me, and it is all that I need
now."

"The purse contains also a ticket to New York, as it has been supposed
that you would desire to return there at once."

"Take all back, with my earnest thanks. I prefer to owe X--only the
remembrance of the great kindness which some few have shown me. The
officers here have been uniformly considerate and courteous to me; Mr.
and Mrs. Singleton will ever be very dear to me for numberless kind
deeds; and Sister Serena was a staff of strength during that frightful
black week of the trial."

She paused, and her voice betrayed something of the tumult at her
heart, as while a sudden wave of scarlet overflowed her cheeks, she
rose and held out both hands.

"Mr. Dunbar, if I have seemed unappreciative of your great exertions in
my behalf, it is merely because there are some matters which I can
never explain in this world. One thing I ask you to believe when I am
gone. I will never, so long as I live, cease to remember the debt I owe
you. I am and shall be inexpressibly grateful to you, and whenever I
think of my terrible sojourn here, be sure I shall recall tenderly--oh!
how tenderly! the two friends who trusted and believed in my innocence,
when all the world denounced me; the two who generously clung to me
when public opinion branded me as an outcast--you two--my best friends,
you and Miss Gordon. It makes me proud and happy to know in this hour
of my vindication, that in her, and in your good o