“By gad!” began Emslie.  Very red in the face, he turned on his heel, and went out slamming the door.

Ambrose laughed, and felt a little better.  Only by allowing his bitter pain some such outlet was he able to endure it.

Disregarding the supper, he strode up and down his prison, planning in his despair how he would harden himself to steel.  No longer would he suffer in silence.  To the last hour he’d swagger and jeer.

These red-coats were stiff-necked and dull-witted; he could have rare fun with them.

He saw himself in the court-room keeping the crowd in a roar with his outrageous gibes.  And if at the last he swung—­he’d step off with a jest that would live in history!

The key turned in the lock again.  He swung around ready with an insult for his jailer.

Colina stood in the doorway.

CHAPTER XXXV.

THE JAIL VISITOR.

The light was behind Colina, and Ambrose could not at first read her expression.  There was something changed in her aspect; her chin was not carried so high.

She was wearing a plain blue linen dress, and her hair was done low over her ears.  Colina was one of the women who unconsciously dress to suit their moods.

She looked different now, but she was indisputably Colina.

The sight of her dear shape caused him the same old shock of astonishment.  All the blood seemed to forsake his heart; he put a hand against the wall behind him for support.

He presently distinguished changes in her face also.  It bore the marks of sleeplessness and suffering.  Pride still made her eyes reticent and cold, but the old outrageous arrogance was gone.

In the wave of tenderness for her that engulfed him he clean forgot the self-pleasing defiance he had imagined for himself, forgot his desperate situation, forgot everything but her.

He was unable to speak, and Colina did not immediately offer to.  She stood a step inside the door, with her hand on the back of the one chair the room contained.  Her eyes were cast down.  It was Emslie who broke the silence.

“Do you wish me to stay?” he respectfully asked Colina.

She raised grave eyes to Ambrose.  “Is there anything I can do for you?” she asked evenly.

“Yes,” said Ambrose breathlessly.

After a moment’s hesitation she said to Emslie:  “Please wait outside.”

Ambrose’s heart leaped up.  No sooner had the door closed behind Emslie than, forgetting everything, it burst its bonds.  “Colina!  How good of you to come!  It makes me so happy to see you!  If you knew how I had hungered and thirsted for a sight of you!  How charming you look in that dress!  Your hair is done differently, too.  I swear it is like the sun shining in here.  You look tired.  Sit down.  Have some tea.  What a fool I am!  You don’t want to eat in a jail, do you?”