xcellent dispositions, as I have had occasion to prove; no
one need know of your visit, and I should of course accompany you."

Anne heard her in silence. She was asking herself whether this gentle
lady had lost all memory of her own youth, and whether that youth had
held no feelings which would make her comprehend the depth of that which
she was asking now.

But Miss Teller was not thinking of her youth, or of herself, or of
Anne. She had but one thought, one motive--Helen's husband, and how to
save him; all the rest seemed to her unimportant. She had in fact
forgotten it. "I do not see how you can hesitate," she said, the tears
suffusing her light eyes, "when it is for our dear Helen's sake."

"Yes," replied Anne; "but Helen is dead. How can we know--how can we be
sure--what she would wish?" She seemed to be speaking to herself. She
rose, walked to the window, and stood there looking out.

"She would wish to have him saved, would she not?" answered Miss Teller.
"I consider it quite necessary that you should see him before you go.
For you could not depend upon my report of what he says. It has, I am
sorry to say, been represented to me more than once that I have a
tendency to forget what has been variously mentioned as the knob, the
point, the gist of a thing."

Anne did not turn.

Miss Teller noted this obstinacy with surprise.

"It is mysterious to me that after the great ordeal of that trial, Anne,
you should demur over such a simple thing as this," she said, gently.

But to Anne the sea of faces in the court-room seemed now less difficult
than that quiet cell with its one occupant. Then she asked herself
whether this were not an unworthy feeling, a weak one? One to be put
down at once, and with a strong hand. She yielded. The visit was
appointed for the next day.

The county jail with its stone hall; a locked door. They were entering;
the jailer retired.

The prisoner rose to receive them; he knew that they were coming, and
was prepared. Miss Teller kissed him; he brought forward his two chairs.
Then turning to Anne, he said, "It is kind of you to come;" and for a
moment they looked at each other.

It was as if they had met in another world, in a far gray land beyond
all human error and human dread. Anne felt this suddenly; if not like a
chill, it was like the touch of an all-enveloping sadness, which would
not pass away. Her fear left her; it seemed to her then that it would
never come back.

As she