“Why were you so unwilling that I should try to release you?”

“I have not a dollar to pay my expenses anywhere, and I appreciated too fully all that was involved in your hospitable offer, to take me under your roof, to be willing to avail myself of it.  Here I am provided for, by those who believe me guilty; and here I have the kind sympathy of Mr. and Mrs. Singleton, who were my first friends when the storm broke over my doomed head.  To go out of prison into the world now, would be torturing, because I am proud and sensitive; and these dark walls screen me from the curious observation from which I shrink, as from being flayed.  To the desolate and homeless, change of place brings no relief; and since there is no escape for me, I prefer to wait here for the end, which, after all, cannot be very distant.”

“Do you refer to the trial next month?”

“No, to that which yawns behind the trial; a shallow gash out there under the pines, where the sound of the penitentiary bell tolls requiems for the souls of its mangled victims.”

“Hush! hush!  You wrong yourself by imagining the possibility of such horrible results.  Gloomy surroundings, coupled with your great bereavement, render you morbidly despondent; and it was the hope of cheering you, that made me so anxious to get you away.  If I could only take you home, even for one week!”

“The wish has cheered me inexpressibly.  How good, how noble, how tender you are!  Miss Gordon, because I am so grateful, let me now say one thing.  You cannot help me in future, and it would grieve me to think that I fell, as an unlifting shadow, between your heart and the sunshine that warms it.  In the night of my wretchedness, you have groped your way to me, and in defiance of the circumstances that are so cruelly leagued to strangle me, you throw your confidence like a warm mantle around my shivering soul; you have courageously laid your pure, womanly hands in mine—­oh, God bless you!  God reward you!  Do you think I could bear to know that I had caused even a hand’s breadth of cloud to drift over the heavenly blue of your happy sky?  The bow of promise that spans your life is no secret.  Let no thought of me jar the harmony that reigned before I came here.  Leave me to my doom, which human hands cannot avert now; and be happy without questioning.  Inexorable fate stands behind men; makes them, sometimes, irresponsible puppets.”

A deep flush had risen to Leo’s temples, and withdrawing her hand, she shaded her face for a moment.  The great bell below the tower clock rang sullenly.

“Good-bye, Miss Gordon.  I had permission to stay here only till the bell sounded.  Pray for me, but do not come again.  Visits to me could bring you nothing but sorrow in return for your compassion, and that would add to my misery.  I wish you a pleasant Christmas, a happy New Year, and as cloudless a life as your great goodness deserves.”

Once more their hands met, in a long close clasp, then Leo laid on the chancel railing a large square envelope.