“And she is there,” he said, with his eyes fixed dreamily on the one patch of blue May sky he could see between his prison bars—­“my wronged, my murdered, my beloved wife!  Ah, yes, death is the highest boon the judges of this world can give me now!”

And so the last night came.  He sat alone.  The jailer who was to share his cell on this last, awful vigil had been bribed to leave him by himself until the latest moment.

“Come in before midnight,” he said, smiling slightly, “and guard me while I sleep, if you wish.  Until then, I should like to be left quite alone.”

And the man obeyed, awed unutterably by the sublime look of that marble face.

“He never did it,” he said to his wife.  “No murderer ever looked with such clear eyes and such a sweet smile as that.  Sir Everard Kingsland is as hinnocent as a hangel, and there’ll be a legal murder done to-morrow.  I wish it was that she-devil that swore his life away instead, I’d turn her off myself with the greatest pleasure.”

As if his thoughts had evoked her, a tall dark figure stood before him—­Miss Sybilla Silver herself.

“Good Lord!” cried the jailer, aghast; “who’d a-thought it?  What do you want?”

“To see the prisoner,” responded Sybilla.

“You can’t see him, then,” said the jailer, gruffly.  “He ain’t going to see anybody this last night, ma’am.”

“Mr. Markham”—­she came over and laid her velvet paw on his arm, and magnetized him with her big black eyes—­“think better of it.  It is his last night.  His mother lies on the point of death.  I come here with a last sacred message from a dying mother to a dying son.  You have an aged mother yourself, Mr. Markham.  Ah! think again, and don’t be hard upon us.”

A sovereign slipped into his palm.

“For only half an hour, then,” he said; “mind that.  Come along!”

The key clanked; the door swung back.  The pale prisoner lifted his serene eyes; the tall, dark figure stepped in.

“Sybilla!”

“Yes, Sir Everard.”

The great door closed with a bang.

“Half an hour, mind,” reiterated the jailer.

The key turned; they were alone together within those massive walls.

“I thought we parted yesterday for the last time in this lower world,” said the baronet, calmly.

“Did you?  You were mistaken, then.  We meet again and part again forever to-night, for the last time in this lower world, or that upper one either, in which you believe, and which I know to be a very pretty little fable.”

She laughed a low, derisive laugh, and came up close to him.  He shut his book, and looked at her in wonder.

“What do you mean?  Why have you come hither to-night?  Why do you look like that?  What is it all?”

“It is this!  That the mask worn two long years is about to be torn off.  It means that you are to hear the truth; it means that the purpose of my life is fulfilled; it means that the hour of my triumph has come.”