* * * * *

Next day in the dawn Lady Landale came into her sister's bedroom. Her
circled eyes, her drawn face bespeaking a sleepless night.

Madeleine was lying, beautiful and white, like a broken lily, in the
dim light of the lamp; Sophia, an unlovely spectacle in curl papers,
wizened and red-eyed from her night's watch, looked up warningly from
the arm-chair beside her. But Molly went unhesitatingly to the window,
pulled the curtains, unbarred the shutters, and then walked over to
the bed.

As she approached, Madeleine opened her blue eyes and gazed at her
beseechingly.

"There is yet time," said Molly in a hollow voice. "Get up and come
with me."

The wan face upon the pillow grew whiter still, the old horror grew in
the uplifted eyes, the wan lips murmured, "I cannot."

There was an immense strength of resistance in the girl's very
feebleness.

Molly turned away abruptly, then back again once more.

"At least you will send him a message?"

Madeleine drew a deep breath, closed her eyes a moment and seemed to
whisper a prayer; then aloud she said, while, like a shadow so faint
was it, a flush rose to her cheeks:

"Tell him that I forgive him, that I forgive him freely--that I shall
always pray for him." The flush grew deeper. "Tell him too that I
shall never be any man's bride, now."

She closed her eyes again and the colour slowly ebbed away. Molly
stood, her black brows drawn, gazing down upon her in silence.--Did
she love him after all? Who can fathom the mystery of another's heart?

"I will tell him," she answered at last. "Good-bye, Madeleine--I shall
never see you or speak to you again as long as I live."

She left the room with a slow, heavy step.

Madeleine shivered, and with both hands clasped the silver crucifix
that hung around her neck; two great tears escaped from her black
lashes and rolled down her cheeks. Miss Sophia moaned. She, poor soul,
had had tragedy enough, at last.

* * * * *

When the jailer brought in the mid-day meal after Adrian's departure,
he found the prisoner seated very quietly at his table, his open Bible
before him, but his eyes fixed dreamily upon the space of dim
whitewashed wall, and his mind evidently far away.

Upon his guardian's entrance he roused himself, however, and begged
him, when he should return for the dish, to restore neatness to the
bed and to assist him in the ordering of his toilet w