“Is it light?” he asked.

“Yes,” said the deputy.

The day began with the familiar things that make up the round of life, but North was conscious that he was thus occupying himself for the last time.  Then he seated himself and began a letter he had told Brockett he wished to write.  Once he paused.

“I will have time for this?” he asked.

“All the time you want, John,” said Brockett hastily, as he slipped from the room.

The sun’s level rays lifted and slanted into the cell, while North, remote from everything but the memory of Elizabeth’s faith and courage, labored to express himself.  There was the sound of voices in the yard, but their significance meant nothing to him now.  He wrote on without lifting his head.  At last the letter was finished and inclosed with a brief note to the general.

The pen dropped from North’s fingers and he stood erect, he was aware that men were still speaking below his window, then he heard footfalls in the corridor, and turned toward the door.  It was the sheriff and his deputy.  Conklin seemed on the verge of collapse, and Brockett’s face was drawn and ghastly.

There was a grim pause, and then Conklin, in a voice that was but a shadow of itself, read the death-warrant.  When he had finished, North cast a last glance about his cell and passed out of the door between the two men.  They walked the length of the corridor, descended the stairs, and entered the jail office.  North turned to Conklin.

“I wish to thank you and Brockett for your kindness to me, and if you do not mind I should like to shake hands with you both and say good-by here,” for through the office windows he had caught sight of the group of men in the yard.

The sheriff, silent, held out his hand.  He dared not trust himself to speak.  North looked into his face.

“I am sorry for you,” he said.

“My God, you may well be!” gasped Conklin.

North shook hands with Brockett and walked toward the door; but as he neared it, Brockett stepped in front of him and threw it open.  As North passed out into the graveled yard, out into the full light of the warm spring day, the sheriff mechanically looked at his watch.  It was twenty minutes after eight.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

AT IDLE HOUR

From her window Elizabeth saw the gray dawn which ushered in that June day steal over the valley below Idle Hour.  Swiftly out of the darkness of the long night grew the accustomed shape of things.  Wooded pastures and plowed fields came mysteriously into existence as the light spread, then the sun burst through the curtain of mist which lay along the eastern horizon, and it was day—­the day of his death.