ow, dear!" he repeated.

"We could do nothing!" she gasped.

"You have done everything that love and devotion could do!"

She looked up into his face.

"You are not afraid?" she whispered, clinging to him.

"I think not," he said simply.

"You are very brave, John--I shall try to be brave, also."

"My dear, dear Elizabeth!" he murmured sadly, and they were silent.

Without, in the corridor, an occasional whispered word passed between
General Herbert and the deputy.

"The governor would do nothing, John," Elizabeth faltered at length.

"I understand, dear," he said tenderly.

"He would not even see us; we went repeatedly to his house and to the
capitol, and in the end we saw his secretary. The governor had left
town; he never intended to see us! To reach this end--when nothing can
be done--" Her eyes grew wide with horror.

He drew her closer, and touched her cold lips with his.

"There is one thing you can do that will be a comfort to me, Elizabeth;
let your father take you home!"

"No, no, I must stay till morning, until the day breaks--don't send me
away, John!" she entreated.

"It will be easier--"

Yet his arms still held her close to him, and he gazed down into the
upturned face that rested against his breast. It was his keen sense of
her suffering that weighed on him now. What a wreck he had made of her
life--what infinite compassion and pity he felt! He held her closer.

"What is it, dear?" she asked.

But he could not translate his feeling into words.

"Oh, if there were only something we could do!" she moaned.

"Through all these weeks you have given me hope and strength! You say
that I am brave! Your love and devotion have lifted me out of myself; I
would be ashamed to be a coward when I think of all you have endured!"

He felt her shiver in his arms, then in the momentary silence the
court-house bell struck the half-hour.

"I thought it was later," she said, as the stroke of the bell died out
in the stillness.

"It is best that you should leave this place, dearest--"

"Don't send me from you, John--I can not bear that yet--" she implored.

Pityingly and tenderly his eyes looked deep into hers. What had she not
endured for his sake! And the long days of effort had terminated in this
last agony of disappointment; but now, and almost mercifully, he felt
the fruitless struggle was ended. All that remained was the acceptance
of an inexorable fate. He drew forward his chair for her, an