“My niece, Miss Gordon, could not, of course, come into the court-room, but she is here in the library, with her aunt, and desires to see you for a moment?”

“Tell her I am grateful for her kind motives, but I wish to see no one now.”

“For your own sake, consider the—­ah! here is my niece.”

“I hope you need no verbal assurance of my deep sympathy, and my constant prayers,” said Leo, taking one passive hand between hers, and pressing it warmly.

“Miss Gordon, I am comforted by your compassion, and by your unwavering confidence in a stranger whom your townsmen hold up as a ‘female monster’.  Because I so profoundly realize how good you are, I am unwilling that you should identify yourself with my hopeless cause.  My sufferings will soon be over, and then I want no shadowy reflex cast upon the smiling blue sky of your future.  I have nothing more to lose, save the burden of a life—­that I shall be glad to lay down; but you—!  Be careful, do not jeopardize your beautiful dream of happiness.”

“Why do you persist in rejecting the overtures of those who could assist, who might successfully defend you?  I beg of you, consent to receive and confer with counsel, even to-night.”

“You will never understand why I must not, till the earth gives up her dead.  You tremble, because only one more link can be added to the chain that is coiling about my neck, and that link is the testimony of the man whose name you expect to bear.  Miss Gordon”—­ she stooped closer, and whispered slowly:  “Do not upbraid your lover; be tender, cling to him; and afford me the consolation of knowing that the unfortunate woman you befriended, and trusted, cast not even a fleeting shadow between your heart and his.  Pray for me, that I may be patient and strong.  God bless you.”

Turning swiftly, she hurried on to the officer, who had courteously withdrawn a few yards distant.  As he opened the door of the wagon, he handed her a loosely folded sheet of paper.

“I promised to deliver your answer as soon as possible.”

By aid of the red glow, burning low in the western sky, she read: 

“Mr. Dunbar requests that for her own sake, Miss Brentano will grant him an interview this evening.”

“My answer must necessarily be verbal.  Say that I will see no one.”

To the solitude and darkness of prison she fled for relief, as into some merciful sheltering arms; and not even the loving solicitude of Mrs. Singleton was permitted to penetrate her seclusion, or share her dreary vigil.  Another sleepless night dragged its leaden hours to meet the dawn, bringing no rest to the desolate soul, who silently grappled with fate, while every womanly instinct shuddered at the loathsome degradation forced upon her.  Face downward on her hard, narrow cot, she recalled the terrible accusations, the opprobrious epithets, and tearless, convulsive sobs of passionate protest shook her from head to foot.