l hope that
ultimately she might obtain justice, but she could scarcely flatter
herself that at the first any distinction would be made between her case
and that of the other prisoners. She would probably be committed for
trial; and though her innocence on that occasion might be proved, she
would have been a prisoner in the interval, instead of devoting all her
energies in freedom to the support and assistance of her father. She
shrank, too, with all the delicacy of a woman, from the impending
examination in open court before the magistrate. Supported by her
convictions, vindicating a sacred principle, there was no trial perhaps
to which Sybil would not have been superior, and no test of her energy
and faith which she would not have triumphantly encountered; but to be
hurried like a criminal to the bar of a police office, suspected of the
lowest arts of sedition, ignorant even of what she was accused, without
a conviction to support her or the ennobling consciousness of having
failed at least in a great cause; all these were circumstances which
infinitely disheartened and depressed her. She felt sometimes that she
should be unable to meet the occasion: had it not been for Gerard she
could almost have wished that death might release her from its base
perplexities.

Was there any hope? In the agony of her soul she had confided last night
in one; with scarcely a bewildering hope that he could save her. He
might not have the power, the opportunity, the wish. He might shrink
from mixing himself up with such characters and such transactions; he
might not have received her hurried appeal in time to act upon it, even
if the desire of her soul were practicable. A thousand difficulties, a
thousand obstacles now occurred to her; and she felt her hopelessness.

Yet notwithstanding her extreme sorrow, and the absence of all
surrounding objects to soothe and to console her, the expanding dawn
revived and even encouraged Sybil. In spite of the confined situation,
she could still partially behold a sky dappled with rosy hues; a sense
of freshness touched her: she could not resist endeavouring to open the
window and feel the air, notwithstanding all her bars. The wife of the
inspector stirred, and half slumbering, murmured, "Are you up? It cannot
be more than five o'clock. If you open the window we shall catch cold;
but I will rise and help you to dress."

This woman, like her husband, was naturally kind, and at once influenced
by Sy