“Time is up,” warned the doorman.

“Tell Mr. Atwood that I am deeply grateful for his aid, and more grateful for his trust,” said Mildred.

“Courage, Millie; you can sustain me by keeping up yourself.  You will find us in the court-room waiting for you.”

With an embrace in which heart throbbed against heart they separated, and the poor girl was comforted and more hopeful in spite of herself, for while she would shrink from Roger, her confidence in his shrewdness and intelligence had made such growth that she half believed he would find some way of proving her innocent, although how he had obtained any evidence in her favor she could not imagine.  The bedding brought by her mother transformed the cellbunk into a comfortable couch, and she lay down and tried to rest, so as to be ready to do her part, and her overtaxed nature soon brought something like sleep.  She was startled out of her half-consciousness by a shrill cry, and sprang to her feet.  There was a confused sound of steps on the stairs, and then again the same wild cry that almost made her heart stand still.  A moment later two policemen appeared, dragging a woman who was resisting and shrieking with demoniacal fury.

The sight was a horrible one.  The faces of the great, stalwart men were reddened by exertion, for the woman seemed to possess supernatural strength, and their familiarity with crime was not so great as to prevent strong expressions of disgust.  Little wonder, for if a fiend could embody itself in a woman, this demented creature would leave nothing for the imagination.  Her dress was wet, torn, and bedraggled; her long black hair hung dishevelled around a white, bloated face, from which her eyes gleamed with a fierceness like that of insanity.

With no little difficulty they thrust her into a cell opposite the one in which Mildred was incarcerated, and as one of the men turned the key upon her he said roughly, “Stay there now, you drunken she-devil, till you are sober,” and breathing heavily from their efforts they left the poor wretch to the care of the jailer.

Mildred shrank away.  Not for the world would she encounter the woman’s frenzied eyes.  Then she stopped her ears that she might not hear the horrid din and shameful language, which made the place tenfold more revolting.  The man in charge of the cells sat dozing stolidly by the stove, some distance away.  His repose was not to be disturbed by such familiar sounds.

At last the woman became quiet, and Mildred breathed more freely, until some mysterious sounds, suggesting that her terrible neighbor was trying to open her door, awakened her fears, for even the thought of her coming any nearer made her tremble.  She therefore sprang up and looked between the iron bars.  At first she was perplexed by what she saw, and then her heart stood still, for she soon made out that the woman was hanging by the neck, from the highest bar of her cell door.  “Help,” Mildred shrieked; “quick, if you would save life.”