Against the shimmering glory of Spring sunshine streaming down upon her, head and throat were outlined like those of haloed martyrs that Mantegna and Sodoma left as imperishable types of patient suffering.

When the visitor came forward to the table that barred nearer approach, she made no attempt to rise, and for a moment both were mute.  He saw the noble head shorn of its splendid coronal of braids, and covered thickly with short, waving, bronzed tendrils of silky hair, that held in its glistening mesh the reddish lustre of old gold, and the deep shadows of time-mellowed mahogany.  That most skilful of all sculptors, hopeless sorrow, had narrowed to a perfect oval the wan face, waxen in its cold purity; and traced about the exquisite mouth those sad, patient curves that attest suffering which sublimates, that belong alone to the beauty of holiness.  Eyes unusually large and shadowy now, beneath their black fringes, were indescribably eloquent with the pathos of a complete, uncomplaining surrender to woes that earth could never cure; and the slender wasted fingers, in their bloodless semi-transparency, might have belonged to some chiselled image of death.  Every jot and tittle of the degrading external badges of felony had been meted out, and instead of the mourning garment she had worn in court, her dress to-day was of the coarse dark-blue home-spun checked with brown, which constituted the prison uniform of female convicts.

As Mr. Dunbar noted the solemn repose, the pathetic grace with which she endured the symbols that emblazoned her ignominous doom, a dark red glow suffused his face, a flush of shame for the indignity which he had been impotent to avert.

“Who dared to cut your hair—­and thrust that garb upon you?  They promised me you should be exempt from brands of felony.”

“When one is beaten with many stripes, a blow more or less matters little; is not computed.  They kindly tell me that illness and the doctor’s commands cost me the loss of my hair; and after all, why should I object to the convict coiffure?  Nothing matters any more.”

“Why not admit at once that, Bernice-like, you freely offered up your beautiful hair as love’s sacrifice?”

He spoke hotly, and an ungovernable rage possessed him as he realized that though so near, and apparently so helpless, she was yet so immeasurably removed, so utterly inaccessible.  Her drooping white lids lifted; she looked steadily up at him, and the mournful eyes held no hint of denial.  He stretched his hand across the table, and all the gnawing hunger at his heart leaped into his voice, that trembled with entreaty.

“For God’s sake give me your hand just once, as proof that you forgive my share in this cruel, dastardly outrage.”

“Do not touch me.  When we shake hands it must be as seal upon a very sacred compact, which you are not yet ready to make.”

She straightened herself, and her hands were removed from the table; fell to stroking the cat lying on her knee.