s destined to be a mother.

This circumstance, that so deepened the pathos and terror of her
position, also invested her with a more profound and pathetic interest
in the eyes of her husband.

Would she live to bring forth her child, even though the governor did
spare her life so long? he asked himself, as he gazed fondly on her pale
face and sunken eyes.

Would the child--perhaps destined to be born in the prison--live to
leave it? And then, what must happen to the mother? And what must be the
after life for the child?

And fondly as he loved, he earnestly prayed that both mother and child
might die in the impending travail unless--unless the new petition sent
up to the governor, and grounded upon the report of the physicians,
should get her a full pardon.

Four days of the keenest anxiety crept slowly by.

There was no possible means of hearing how Ishmael Worth prospered in
his mission to the governor.

There were but two mails a week from Richmond to Blackville.

Ishmael Worth would go and come with all possible speed, for he must be
his own messenger.

It was on the morning of the fifth day, since the young lawyer departed
on his humane errand.

Lyon Berners was making his usual morning visit to his wife in her cell.

She was sitting as placidly unconscious of danger as usual, in her
harmless hallucination, playing with her little dog, which was coiled up
on her lap.

Beatrix Pendleton, who had scarcely left Sybil for an hour since her
imprisonment, sat gravely and quietly near, engaged as usual upon some
little trifle of needle-work.

And Lyon Berners sat purposely with his back to the light to shade his
face, and hide the uncontrollable agitation of his countenance, as he
gazed upon his doomed wife, and shuddered to think of the awful issues
at stake in the success or failure of Ishmael Worth's mission.

Should this second petition be more fortunate than the first one, and
should Mr. Worth succeed in obtaining for her a full pardon, Sybil might
go forth this very day a free woman, and her husband might take her far
away from these scenes of suffering to some fair foreign land, where she
might recover her reason and her peace of mind.

Should Mr. Worth fail in obtaining a full pardon, but succeed in gaining
a respite, Sybil would be permitted to live, if she could, long enough
to bring forth her child, and then her own forfeited life must be
yielded up.

But should her advocate fail also to ob