f those closing scenes.

"Of course they could do nothing but sentence her. Then, when she
understood that she was to be sent to prison after all, she went nearly
off her head with fright ... she swore she'd lied, retracted everything
she'd said ... oh, there was a terrible scene--she shrieked when they
tried to silence her, clung to the dock so that they shouldn't take her
away ... my God! It was horrible, horrible to see her, so little and
fragile, screaming to me to save her from the men who were all against
her...."

Toni, white to the lips, could see it all. She had forgotten her own
griefs now in contemplation of this far more terrible sorrow.

"Even the Judge was upset when he had to sentence her. The court was
full of women--I told you the case had attracted a lot of attention--but
thank God they were rendered miserable by their presence there in the
end. When she heard her sentence--eighteen months in the second
division--she couldn't grasp it at first--and then just as I was
beginning to feel I must do something or I should go mad, she fainted
clean away and was carried out insensible."

"Oh, Mr. Herrick,"--Toni, her eyes full of tears, spoke
impetuously--"how terrible for you--for you both! Did you go to her and
try to comfort her?"

He was silent for a long moment. Then--

"That was the worst of all." His voice was grim. "When once she realised
that she was helpless, that she was to be kept in prison, against her
will, for eighteen long months, all her love for me turned to hate. By a
queer, perverted instinct she blamed me for everything that had
happened. She persisted in asserting that I could have saved her if I
would. It was quite useless for me to say anything. I was allowed to see
her once more--with my solicitor--and she heaped reproaches on my head
till my blood ran cold. She called me a scoundrel, a coward, because I
hadn't succeeded in shifting the blame to my own shoulders. She raged
against her fate, swore she wouldn't obey the rules, would starve
herself to death--and taunted me with the fact, that while she was
suffering, starving, in a prison cell, I should be warm and well-fed at
home. She screamed out that she hated me, wished me dead--and my last
glimpse of her was as she disappeared, her face distorted with passion
till all the soft childish beauty had vanished."

"And she is there now?"

"In prison? Yes."

"But--is the time nearly over?"

"Yes. Four weeks to-day Eva will be