The clock striking ten, sounded through the muffling storm a knell as mournful as some tolling bell, while into that wild, moaning Friday night, went the desolate woman, wearing henceforth the brand of Cain—­remanded to the convict’s home.

She had thrown back her veil to ease the stifling sensation in her throat, and Mr. Dunbar could see now and then, as they dashed past a street lamp, that she sat upright, still as stone.

At last she said, in a tone peculiarly calm, like that of one talking in sleep: 

“What did it mean—­that verdict?”

“That you went back to ‘Elm Bluff’ with no intention of attacking Gen’l Darrington.”

“That I went there deliberately to steal, and then to avoid detection, killed him?  That was the verdict of the jury?”

She waited a moment.

“Answer me.  That was the meaning?  That was the most merciful verdict they could give to the world?”

Only the hissing sound of the rain upon the glass pane of the carriage, made reply.

They had reached the bridge, when a hysterical laugh startled the man, who leaned back on the front seat, with his arms crossed tightly over a heart throbbing with almost unendurable pain.

“To steal, to rob, to plunder.  Branded for all time a thief, a rogue, a murderess.  I!—­I—­”

A passionate wail told the strain was broken:  “I, my father’s darling, my father’s Beryl!  Hurled into a living tomb, herded with convicts, with the vilest outcasts that disgrace the earth—­this is worse than a thousand deaths!  It would have been so merciful to crush out the life they mangled; but to doom me to the slow torture of this loathsome grave, where death brings no release!  To die is so easy, so blessed; but to live—­a convicted felon!  O, my God! my God!  Hast Thou indeed forsaken me?”

In the appalling realization of her fate, she rocked to and fro for a moment only, fiercely shaken by the horror of a future never before contemplated.  Then the proud soul stifled its shuddering sigh, lifted its burden of shame, silently struggled up its awful Via Crucis.  Mute and still, she leaned back in the corner of the carriage.

“I could have saved you, but you would not accept deliverance.  You thwarted every effort, tied the hands that might have set you free; and by your own premeditated course throughout the trial, deliberately dragged this doom down upon your head.  You counted the cost, and you elected, chose of your own free will to offer yourself as a sacrifice, to the law, for the crime of another.  You are your own merciless fate, decreeing self-immolation.  You were willing to die, in order to save that man’s life; and you can certainly summon fortitude to endure five years’ deprivation of his society; sustained by the hope that having thereby purchased his security, you may yet reap the reward your heart demands, reunion with its worthless, degraded idol.  I have watched, weighed, studied you; searched every stray record of your fair young life, found the clear pages all pure; and I have doubted, marvelled that you, lily-hearted, lily-souled, lily-handed, could cast the pearl of your love down in the mire, to be trampled by swinish feet.”