Her death was sudden and unlooked-for, though neither Nature nor the woman could have been blamed for the shock poor Laval experienced.  Death had fairly surrounded her, disarming her at every point, so that when he called her there was no resistance.

Jailer Laval took the bereavement in a remorseful mood.  The first thing to be done now was the very last he would have owned to purposing during her life-time.  Release from that prison had been the woman’s prayer, year in and year out, these ten years, and Death was the bearer of the answer to that prayer,—­not her husband.

But now, from the day of her sudden decease, the prison had become to him dreary beyond endurance.  The mantle of her discontent fell on him, and, having no other confidant beside honest, stupid Sandy, he talked to him like a man who seriously thought of abandoning his labor, and retiring to that land across the sea for which his wife had pined during ten homesick years.

Sandy, who might have regarded himself in the light of an “humble instrument,” had he been capable of a particle of vanity or presumption, told Elizabeth Montier, with whom he had held many a conference concerning prison matters, since Manuel first began to walk along the southern garden-walk, where the flower-beds lay against the prison-wall.  What was her answer?  It came instantly, without premeditation or precaution,—­

“Then we must take his place, Sandy.”

“We, Miss?” said Sandy, with even greater consternation than surprise.

“Yes,” she replied, too much absorbed by what she was thinking, to mind him and his blunders,—­“papa must take the prison.”

“Oh!”—­and Sandy blushed through his tan at his absurd mistake.  Then he laughed, for he saw that she had not noticed it.  Then he looked grave, and wondering, and doubtful.  The idea of Adolphus Montier’s pretty wife and pretty daughter changing their pretty home for life in the dark prison startled him.  He seemed to think it no less wrong than strange.  But he did not express that feeling out and out; he was hindered, as he glanced sideways at the young girl who gazed so solemnly, so loftily, before her.  At what she was looking he could not divine.  He saw nothing.

“I wouldn’t be overly quick about that,” said he, cautiously.

“No danger!” was the prompt reply.

“For I tell you, of all the places I ever see, that prison makes me feel the queerest.  I believe it’s one reason I let the flower-garden go so long,” owned Sandy.  He did not speak these words without an effort; and never had Elizabeth seen him so solemn.  She also was grave,—­but not after his manner of gravity.

“You see what I did with the poor flower-beds, Sandy,” said she.  “Wait now till you see what happens to the prison.”

But it is one thing to purpose, and another to execute.  Far easier for Elizabeth to declare than to conduct an heroic design.  One thing prevented rest day and night,—­the knowledge that Laval’s intended resignation must be followed by a new application and appointment.  With such a degree of sympathy had the condition of the captive inspired her, that the idea of the bare possibility of cruelty or neglect or brutality assuming the jailer’s authority seemed to lay upon her all the responsibility of his future.  She must act, for she dared not hesitate.