hesitatingly.

"I would rather go now, please," said Anne.

For a slow tremor was taking possession of her; the country prison,
which had not before had a dangerous look, seemed now to be growing dark
and cruel; the iron-barred window was like a menace. It seemed to say
that they might talk; but that the prisoner was theirs.

Miss Margaretta rose, disappointed but obedient; she bade Heathcote
good-by, and said that she would come again on the morrow.

Then he stepped forward. "I shall not see you again," he said to Anne,
holding out his hand. He had not offered to take her hand before.

She gave him hers, and he held it for a moment. No word was spoken; it
was a mute farewell. Then she passed out, followed by Miss Teller, and
the door was closed behind them.

"Why, you had twenty minutes more," said Jason Longworthy, the deputy,
keeping watch in the hall outside.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

"The fisherman, unassisted by destiny, could not catch a fish in
the Tigris; and the fish, without fate, could not have died upon
dry land."--SAADI.

Anne met Miss Lois in New York. Miss Lois had never been in New York
before; but it would take more than New York to confuse Miss Lois. They
remained in the city for several days in order to rest and arrange their
plans. There was still much to explain which the letters, voluminous as
they had been, had not made entirely clear.

But first they spoke of the child. It was Miss Lois at length who turned
resolutely from the subject, and took up the tangled coil which awaited
her. "Begin at the beginning and tell every word," she said, sitting
erect in her chair, her arms folded with tight compactness. If Miss Lois
could talk, she could also listen. In the present case she listened
comprehensively, sharply, and understandingly. When all was told--"How
different it is from the old days when we believed that you and Rast
would live always with us on the island, and that that would be the
whole," she said, with a long, sad retrospective sigh. Then dismissing
the past, "But we must do in this disappointing world what is set before
us," she added, sighing again, but this time in a preparatory way. Anew
she surveyed Anne. "You are much changed, child," she said. Something
of her old spirit returned to her. "I wish those fort ladies could see
you _now_!" she remarked, taking off her spectacles and wiping them with
a combative air.

Possessed of Anne's narrative, she now be