chair, at which she had been praying when exhausted nature
gave way and she slept. Her bonnet had fallen off, and her rich hair,
which had broken loose, covered her shoulder like a mantle. Her slumber
was brief and disturbed, but it had in a great degree soothed the
irritated brain. She woke however in terror from a dream in which she
had been dragged through a mob and carried before a tribunal. The coarse
jeers, the brutal threats, still echoed in her ear; and when she looked
around, she could not for some moments recall or recognise the scene.
In one corner of the room, which was sufficiently spacious, was a bed
occupied by the still sleeping wife of the inspector; there was a great
deal of heavy furniture of dark mahogany; a bureau, several chests of
drawers: over the mantel was a piece of faded embroidery framed, that
had been executed by the wife of the inspector when she was at school,
and opposite to it, on the other side, were portraits of Dick Curtis
and Dutch Sam, who had been the tutors of her husband, and now lived as
heroes in his memory.

Slowly came over Sybil the consciousness of the dreadful eve that was
past. She remained for some time on her knees in silent prayer: then
stepping lightly, she approached the window. It was barred. The room
which she inhabited was a high story of the house; it looked down upon
one of those half tawdry, half squalid streets that one finds in the
vicinities of our theatres; some wretched courts, haunts of misery and
crime, blended with gin palaces and slang taverns, burnished and
brazen; not a being was stirring. It was just that single hour of
the twenty-four when crime ceases, debauchery is exhausted, and even
desolation finds a shelter.

It was dawn, but still grey. For the first time since she had been a
prisoner, Sybil was alone. A prisoner, and in a few hours to be examined
before a public tribunal! Her heart sank. How far her father had
committed himself was entirely a mystery to her; but the language
of Morley, and all that she had witnessed, impressed her with the
conviction that he was deeply implicated. He had indeed spoken in their
progress to the police office with confidence as to the future, but then
he had every motive to encourage her in her despair, and to support
her under the overwhelming circumstances in which she was so suddenly
involved. What a catastrophe to all his high aspirations! It tore
her heart to think of him! As for herself, she would stil