few labouring
deep-drawn breaths from the prisoner's oppressed lungs. Then he stood
as if turned to stone, not a muscle moving, his eyes fixed, his jaw
set.

Molly trembled before this composure, beneath which she divined a
suffering so intense that her own frail barriers of self-restraint
were well-nigh broken down by a torrent of passionate pity.

But she braced herself with the feeling of the moment's urgency. She
had no time to lose.

"Hear me," she cried in low hurried tones, laying a hand upon his
folded arm and then drawing it away again as if frightened by the
rigid tension she felt there. "Waste no more thought on one so
unworthy--all is not lost--I bring you hope, life. Oh, for God's
sake, wake up and listen to me--I can save you still. Captain Smith,
Jack--_Jack!_"

Her voice rose as high as she dare lift it, but no statue could be
more unhearing.

The woman cast a desperate look around her; hearkened fearfully, all
was silent within the prison; then with tremulous haste she cast off
her immense cloak, pulled her bonnet from her head, divested herself
of her long full skirt and stood, a strange vision, lithe,
unconscious, unashamed, her slender woman's figure clad in complete
man's raiment, with the exception of the coat. Her dark head cropped
and curly, her face, with its fever-bloom, rising flower-like above
the folds of her white shirt.

With anxious haste she compared herself with the prisoner.

"Rene told me well," she said; "with your coat upon me none would tell
the difference in this dark room. I am nearly as tall as you too.
Thanks be to God that he made me so. _Jack_," calling in his ear,
"don't you see? Don't you understand? It is all quite easy. You have
only to put on these clothes of mine, this cloak, the bonnet comes
quite over the face; stoop a little as you go out and hold this
handkerchief to your face as if in tears. The carriage waits outside
and Rene. The rest is planned. I shall sit on the bed with your coat
on. It is a chance--a certainty. When I found Rene had failed, I swore
that I would save you yet. Ever since I came from Pulwick this morning
he and I have worked together upon this last plan. There is not a
flaw; it must succeed. Oh, God, he does not hear me! Jack--Jack!"

She shook him with a sort of fury, then, falling at his feet, clasped
his knees.

"For God's sake--for God's sake!"

He sighed, and again came the murmur:

"She would not come----" He lifted his h