“Arrested for what?  By whom?”

“I am ordered to arrest you for the murder of General Darrington.”

“Murder!  General Darrington is alive and well.  I have just left him.  Stand back!  Do not touch me.  I will call on the police to protect me.”

Laying his fingers firmly on her arm, he beckoned to two men clad in police uniform, who promptly approached.

“You see resistance is worse than useless, and since there is no escape, come quietly.”

“You are insulting me, under some frightful mistake.  I am a lady.  Do I look like a criminal?”

“General Darrington has been robbed and murdered, and I have telegraphic orders to arrest and hold a woman named Beryl Brentano, who corresponds in every respect with the description of the person suspected of having committed the crime.”

Hitherto she had attributed the insult of the interview to some question of mistaken identity, but as she slowly comprehended the possibility that she was the person accused, and intended for arrest, a sickening horror seized and almost paralyzed her, blanching her face and turning her to stone.  As he led her along the street, she staggered from the numbness that possessed her, and her eyes stared blankly, like those of a somnambulist.  When she had been ushered into a room where several policemen were lounging and smoking, the intolerable sense of shame and indignation shook off her apathy.

“This is a cruel and outrageous wrong, and only base cowards could wantonly insult an unprotected and innocent woman.  You call yourselves men?  Have you no mothers, no sisters, whose memory can arouse some reverence, some respect for womanhood in your brutal souls?”

Electric lamps set in the sockets of some marble face, might perhaps resemble the blaze that leaped up in her eyes, as she wrenched her arm from the officer’s profaning touch, and her voice rang like the clash of steel.

“Madam, we are allowed no discretion; we are only the blind and deaf machines that obey orders.  Read the warrant, and you will understand that our duty is imperative.”

Again and again she read the paper, in which the sheriff of the county where Elm Bluff is situated, demanded her arrest and return to X—–­, on the charge of robbery and murder committed during the night which she had spent at the station.  Then several telegrams were placed before her.  The description of herself, her dress, even of the little basket and shawl, was minutely accurate; and by degrees the horror of her situation, and her utter helplessness, became frightfully distinct.  The papers fell from her nerveless fingers, and one desperate cry broke from her white lips: 

“O just God!  Will you permit such a shameful, cruel outrage?  Save me from this horrible injustice and disgrace!”

Seeing neither the men, nor the room, her strained gaze seemed in her great agony fixed upon the face of Him, who, silvering the lilies of the field and watching the flight of sparrows, has tender care for all who trust Him.  Even in this terrible trial, the girl’s first thought was of her mother; and of the disastrous effect that the misfortune would produce upon the invalid.