“No!” wailed Roxbury’s wife.

“He’s a brute!” stormed Miss Fowler.

“Constance!” flared Mrs. Medcroft, aghast at this sign of lese-majesty.

“Don’t tell anybody,” called Constance, as she banged the door behind her.

Soon after midnight a closely veiled lady drove up to a street corner adjacent to the city prison, a dolorous-looking building which loomed up still and menacing just ahead.  She alighted and, dismissing the cab, strode off quickly into the side street.  At a distant corner, in front of a crowded eating-house, two spirited horses, saddled and in charge of a grumbling stable-boy, champed noisily at their bits.  The young woman exchanged a few rapid sentences with the boy, and then returned in the direction from which she came.  A man stepped out of a doorway as she neared the corner, accosting her with a stealthy deference that proclaimed him to be anything but an unwelcome marauder.

The conversation which passed between the slender, nervous young woman and this burly individual was carried on in very cautious tones, accompanied by many quick and furtive glances in all directions, as if both were in fear of observers.  At last, after eager pleading on one side and stolid expostulation on the other, a small package passed from the hand of the young woman into the huge paw of the man.  The latter gave her a quick, cautious salute and hurried back toward the gaol.

The veiled young woman, very nervous and strangely agitated, made her way back to the spot where the horses were standing.  Making her way through the cluster of small tables which lined the inner side of the sidewalk, she found one unoccupied at the extreme end, a position which commanded a view of the street down which she had just come.

Half an hour passed.  Midnight revellers at the surrounding tables began to take notice of this tall, elegant, nervous young woman with the veiled face.  It was plain to all of them that she was expecting someone; naturally it would be a man, therefore a lover.  Her nervousness grew as the minutes lengthened into the hour.  A clock in a tower near by struck one.  She was now staring with wide, eager eyes down the street, alertly watching the approach of anyone who came from that direction.  Twice she half arose and started forward with a quick sigh of relief, only to sink back again dejectedly upon discovering that she had been mistaken in the identity of a newcomer.

Half-past one, then two o’clock.  The merry-makers were thinning out; she was quite alone at her end of the place.  By this time a close observer might have noticed that she was trembling violently; there was an air of abject fear and despair in her manner.

Why did he not come?  What had happened?  Had the plot failed?  Was he even now lying wounded unto death as the result of his effort to escape captivity?  A hundred horrid thoughts raced through her throbbing, overwrought brain.  He should have been with her two hours ago—­he should now be far on his way to freedom.  Alas, something appalling had happened, she was sure of it.