ross the body
of the tortured prisoner had not North caught her in his arms.

Rufus Dawes, awaking from his stupor, saw, in the midst of a sunbeam
which penetrated a window in the corridor, the woman who came to
save his body supported by the priest who came to save his soul; and
staggering to his knees, he stretched out his hands with a hoarse cry.
Perhaps something in the action brought back to the dimmed remembrance
of the Commandant's wife the image of a similar figure stretching forth
its hands to a frightened child in the mysterious far-off time. She
started, and pushing back her hair, bent a wistful, terrified gaze upon
the face of the kneeling man, as though she would fain read there an
explanation of the shadowy memory which haunted her. It is possible that
she would have spoken, but North--thinking the excitement had produced
one of those hysterical crises which were common to her--gently drew
her, still gazing, back towards the gate. The convict's arms fell,
and an undefinable presentiment of evil chilled him as he beheld
the priest--emotion pallid in his cheeks--slowly draw the fair young
creature from out the sunlight into the grim shadow of the heavy
archway. For an instant the gloom swallowed them, and it seemed to Dawes
that the strange wild man of God had in that instant become a man of
Evil--blighting the brightness and the beauty of the innocence that
clung to him. For an instant--and then they passed out of the prison
archway into the free air of heaven--and the sunlight glowed golden on
their faces.

"You are ill," said North. "You will faint. Why do you look so wildly?"

"What is it?" she whispered, more in answer to her own thoughts than
to his question--"what is it that links me to that man? What deed--what
terror--what memory? I tremble with crowding thoughts, that die ere they
can whisper to me. Oh, that prison!"

"Look up; we are in the sunshine."

She passed her hand across her brow, sighing heavily, as one awaking
from a disturbed slumber--shuddered, and withdrew her arm from his.
North interpreted the action correctly, and the blood rushed to his
face. "Pardon me, you cannot walk alone; you will fall. I will leave you
at the gate."

In truth she would have fallen had he not again assisted her. She
turned upon him eyes whose reproachful sorrow had almost forced him to
a confession, but he bowed his head and held silence. They reached the
house, and he placed her tenderly in a chair. "