n his voice: "Cheer her if you
can. She is one of your class. Do not let the lights go out."

Raising his hands, he fairly drove the others from the doorway. An
instant later, King and his miserable, half-conscious companion were
alone, locked in together, the fitful light from the candle on the floor
playing hide and seek in shadows he had not seen before during his age
of imprisonment.

For a long time he stood in his corner, watching the figure huddled
against the opposite wall. Her face was not plainly visible, her head
having dropped forward until the chin nestled in the lace jabot at her
throat. A mass of tangled hair fell across her eyes; her arms hung
limply at her sides; small, modish riding hoots showed beneath the hem
of her skin, forlorn in their irresoluteness. Her garments were sadly
bedraggled; a pathetic breast rose and fell in choking sobs and gasps.

Suddenly he started forward, his eyes wide and staring. He had seen that
grey riding habit before! He had seen the hair!

Two eager steps he took and then halted, half way. She had heard him and
was raising her eyes, bewildered and wavering between dreamland and
reality.

"Great Jehovah!" he gasped, unbelieving. "You? My God, is it you?"

He dropped to his knees before her, peering into her startled eyes. A
look of abject terror crossed the tired, tear-stained face. She shrank
away from him, shivering, whimpering like a cowed child.

"What is it? Where am I?" she moaned. "Oh, let me go! What have I done,
that you should bring me here? Let me go, Mr. King! You are not so
wicked as--"

"I? I bring you here?" he interrupted, aghast. Then he understood. Utter
dismay filled his eyes. "You think that I have done this thing to you?
God above us! Look! I, too, am a prisoner here. I've been here for days,
weeks, years. They are going to kill me after to-morrow. And you think
that I have done this to you!"

"I don't know what--Oh, Mr. King, what does it all mean? Forgive me! I
see now. You are bound--you are suffering--you are years older. I see
now. But why is it? What have you done? What have I done?"

She was growing hysterical with terror.

"Don't shrink from me," he urged. "Try to calm yourself. Try to look
upon me as a friend--as a possible saviour. Lie quiet, do, for a little
while. Think it all out for yourself."

He knelt there before her while she sobbed out the last agony of alarm.
There were no tears in her eyes; racking sobs shook her slen