n the horrible nights. He made a great effort to eat some
dinner, but could not. What would become of him if he could neither eat
nor sleep? On what stores of energy would he be able to draw when the
time came for defending himself? He was sitting by the table, leaning
his head against the wall, his eyes closed, when the prisoner-attendant
came to take away his dinner. "Ill?" inquired the young man cheerfully.
Axel did not move or answer. It was too much trouble to speak.

The warder, upon the attendant's remarking that No. 32 seemed unwell,
examined him through the peep-hole in the door, but decided that he was
not ill yet; not ill enough, that is. In another week he would be ready
for the prison doctor, but not yet. These things must take their course.
It was always the same course; he had been a warder twenty years, and
knew almost to an hour the date on which, after the arrest, the doctor
would be required.

Axel was sitting in the same position when, about three o'clock, the
door was unlocked again. He did not move or open his eyes.

"_Ihr Fraeulein Braut ist hier_," said the warder.

The word _Braut_, betrothed, sent Axel's thoughts back across the years
to Hildegard. His betrothed? Had he heard the mocking words, or had he
been dreaming? He turned his head and looked vaguely towards the door.
All the sunlight was out there in the wide corridor, and in it, on the
threshold, stood Anna.

What had she meant to say? She never could remember. It had been
something deeply apologetic, ashamed. But her fears and her shame fell
from her like a garment when she saw him. "Oh, poor Axel--oh, poor
Axel----" she murmured with a quick sob.

He tried to get up to come to her. In an instant she was at his side,
and, stumbling, he fell on his knees, holding her by the dress, clinging
to her as to his salvation. "It is not pity, Anna?" he asked in a voice
sharp with an intolerable fear.

And Anna, half blinded by her tears, deliberately put her arms round his
neck, relinquishing by that one action herself and her future entirely
to him, hauling down for ever her flag of independent womanhood, and
bending down her face to that upturned face of agonised questioning laid
her lips on his. "No," she whispered, and she kissed him with a
passionate tenderness between the words, "it is only love--only
love----"

CHAPTER XXXII

There was a grave beauty, an austerity almost, about this betrothal in
the prison. Here was no