s dear to her, and
she would preserve it by dishonoring her trust. Then she had unfolded
her plan of escape, disjointedly, guiltily, hopelessly. In one place
near the end, she wrote: "You have done much more for me than you know,
so I pray that God may be good enough to let me repay you so far as
it lies within my power to do so." In another place she said: "You may
trust my accomplices, for they love me, too." An admission unconsciously
made, that word "too."

But she was offering him freedom only to send him away without granting
one moment of joy in her presence. After all, with death staring him
in the face, the practically convicted murderer of a prince, he knew he
could not have gone without seeing her. He had been ungrateful, perhaps,
but the message he had sent to her was from his heart, and something
told him that it would give her pleasure.

A key turned suddenly in the lock, and his heart bounded with the
hope that it might be some one with her surrender in response to his
ultimatum. He sat upright and rubbed his swollen eyes. The door
swung open, and a tall prison guard peered in upon him, a sharpeyed,
low-browed fellow in rain coat and helmet. His lantern's single unkind
eye was turned menacingly toward the bed.

"What do you want?" demanded the prisoner, irritably.

Instead of answering, the guard proceeded to unlock the second or
grated door, stepping inside the cell a moment later. Smothering an
exclamation, Lorry jerked out his watch and then sprang to his feet,
intensely excited. It was just twelve o'clock, and he remembered now
that she had said a guard would come to him at that hour. Was this the
man? Was the plan to be carried out?

The two men stood staring at each other for a moment or two, one in the
agony of doubt and suspense, the other quizzically. A smile flitted over
the face of the guard; he calmly advanced to the table, putting down
his lantern. Then he drew off his rain coat and helmet and placed in the
other's hand a gray envelope. Lorry reeled and would have fallen but for
the wall against which he staggered. A note from her was in his hand.
He tore open the envelope and drew forth the letter. As he read he grew
strangely calm and contented; a blissful repose rushed in to supplant
the racking unrest of a moment before; the shadows fled and life's light
was burning brightly once more. She had written:

"I entreat you to follow instructions and go to-night. You say you will
not lea