e averted. Already he fancied he could
see the dim speck that was the schooner move slowly away from the prison
shore. He must not linger; they would be waiting for him at the jetty.
As he turned, the moonbeams--as yet unobscured by the rapidly gathering
clouds--flung a silver streak across the sea, and across that streak
North saw a boat pass. Was his distracted brain playing him false?--in
the stern sat, wrapped in a cloak, the figure of a man! A fierce gust
of wind drove the sea-rack over the moon, and the boat disappeared, as
though swallowed up by the gathering storm. North staggered back as the
truth struck him.

He remembered how he had said, "I will redeem him with my own blood!"
Was it possible that a just Heaven had thus decided to allow the man
whom a coward had condemned, to escape, and to punish the coward who
remained? Oh, this man deserved freedom; he was honest, noble, truthful!
How different from himself--a hateful self-lover, an unchaste priest,
a drunkard. The looking-glass, in which the saintly face of Meekin was
soon to be reflected, stood upon the table, and North, peering into it,
with one hand mechanically thrust into the bag, started in insane rage
at the pale face and bloodshot eyes he saw there. What a hateful wretch
he had become! The last fatal impulse of insanity which seeks relief
from its own hideous self came upon him, and his fingers closed
convulsively upon the object they had been seeking.

"It is better so," he muttered, addressing, with fixed eyes, his own
detested image. "I have examined you long enough. I have read your
heart, and written out your secrets! You are but a shell--the shell that
holds a corrupted and sinful heart. He shall live; you shall die!" The
rapid motion of his arm overturned the candle, and all was dark.

Rufus Dawes, overpowered by the revelation so suddenly made to him, had
remained for a few moments motionless in his cell, expecting to hear
the heavy clang of the outer door, which should announce to him the
departure of the chaplain. But he did not hear it, and it seemed to him
that the air in the cell had grown suddenly cooler. He went to the
door, and looked into the narrow corridor, expecting to see the scowling
countenance of Gimblett. To his astonishment the door of the prison was
wide open, and not a soul in sight. His first thought was of North.
Had the story he had told, coupled with the entreaties he had lavished,
sufficed to turn him from hi