sublime look of that marble
face.

"He never did it," he said to his wife. "No murderer ever looked with
such clear eyes and such a sweet smile as that. Sir Everard Kingsland
is as hinnocent as a hangel, and there'll be a legal murder done
to-morrow. I wish it was that she-devil that swore his life away
instead, I'd turn her off myself with the greatest pleasure."

As if his thoughts had evoked her, a tall dark figure stood before
him--Miss Sybilla Silver herself.

"Good Lord!" cried the jailer, aghast; "who'd a-thought it? What do
you want?"

"To see the prisoner," responded Sybilla.

"You can't see him, then," said the jailer, gruffly. "He ain't going
to see anybody this last night, ma'am."

"Mr. Markham"--she came over and laid her velvet paw on his arm, and
magnetized him with her big black eyes--"think better of it. It is his
last night. His mother lies on the point of death. I come here with a
last sacred message from a dying mother to a dying son. You have an
aged mother yourself, Mr. Markham. Ah! think again, and don't be hard
upon us."

A sovereign slipped into his palm.

"For only half an hour, then," he said; "mind that. Come along!"

The key clanked; the door swung back. The pale prisoner lifted his
serene eyes; the tall, dark figure stepped in.

"Sybilla!"

"Yes, Sir Everard."

The great door closed with a bang.

"Half an hour, mind," reiterated the jailer.

The key turned; they were alone together within those massive walls.

"I thought we parted yesterday for the last time in this lower world,"
said the baronet, calmly.

"Did you? You were mistaken, then. We meet again and part again
forever to-night, for the last time in this lower world, or that upper
one either, in which you believe, and which I know to be a very pretty
little fable."

She laughed a low, derisive laugh, and came up close to him. He shut
his book, and looked at her in wonder.

"What do you mean? Why have you come hither to-night? Why do you look
like that? What is it all?"

"It is this! That the mask worn two long years is about to be torn
off. It means that you are to hear the truth; it means that the
purpose of my life is fulfilled; it means that the hour of my triumph
has come."

He sat and looked at her, lost in wonder.

"You do not speak--you sit and stare as though you could not believe
your eyes or ears. It is hard to believe, I know--the humble, the meek
Sybilla metamorphosed th