ples as to the displeasure which
Sydney might feel if he were to hear what she now contemplated. She had
no wish to punish her brother. She thought he had been cruel, and
indifferent to the suffering which he had caused; but she was not moved
by anything like a vindictive feeling towards him. She had simply lost
the scruples which had beset her, and there was no longer a desire in
her mind to avoid a mere semblance of unconventionality for his sake.

She had chosen three rooms on the ground-floor of a house in a long and
dreary terrace, the windows of which looked across an intervening waste
to the walls of Alan's prison; and here she watched and waited.

The time hung heavy on her hands. She could do nothing, read nothing,
think of nothing--except of the unhappy man within those walls, who had
been brought to death's door, and who must have known a living death for
the past six months. To her, merely looking at the walls and thinking of
their victim, every minute seemed an hour, and every hour a day of blank
despair. What must the minutes and hours have seemed to him, buried
alive in that hideous pile of bricks, and in the yet more hideous pile
of false accusations and unmerited disgrace?

She had found out the date of the trial, and procured the papers in
which it was reported. The whole wretched story was before her now. She
saw how the web had been weaved round him; she understood the pains
which had been taken to keep her own name from being mentioned, and she
noted with burning indignation the persistency with which Sydney had
labored, apparently, to secure a conviction.

She was on the point of seeking out Mr. Larmer, in order to learn from
him the assurance of innocence which Alan must have given to his
solicitor; but she refrained. It would look as though she wanted
evidence of what she believed so absolutely without any evidence; and
besides, was it not one of the pleasures which she had promised herself,
to hear from Alan's own lips all that he cared for her to hear?

She stood by her window in the evening, and saw the lights spring up one
by one about the frowning gates of the prison. She was quite alone,
Milly having gone out with her baby to buy her some clothes. Lettice was
miserable and depressed, in spite of her good intentions; and as she
stood, half leaning against the shutter in unconscious weariness of
body, yet intent with all her mind upon the one subject that engrossed
her, she heard the dist