"Will you not be seated, Miss Baynard?" he now said, as he brought forward a substantial three-legged stool, the only thing, except his pallet, he had to sit on. "My accommodation is of the simplest, as you can see for yourself. That, however, is not my fault, but an oversight (shall we call it?) on the part of my custodians, whose affection for me is so extreme that they cannot bear to part from me." So Nell sat down on the three-legged stool, while Dare stood a little apart, with folded arms, resting a shoulder against the whitewashed wall of his cell. Miss Baynard cleared her voice; the crucial moment had come at last. "I am not here this evening, Mr. Dare, merely to sympathize with you," she resumed, "although that my most heartfelt sympathy is yours needs no assurance on my part, but to put before you a certain definite proposition, which has been carefully thought out in all its details, and the carrying out of which seems to me perfectly feasible. Here, in the fewest words possible--necessarily few because half an hour at the outside must bring my visit to an end--is my proposition. It is simply that you and I shall change places. In half a hour from now you shall quit this cell in the guise of Elinor Baynard, and I shall stay where I am, having, for the nonce, exchanged my personality for that of Mr. Geoffrey Dare." Dare had sprung to "attention" long before Nell had come to an end. A wave of dark crimson swept across his lean face, leaving it sallower than before. His eyes lighted up with an intense glow. Would any woman, he asked himself, any woman who was young and beautiful, put such a proposition to a man if she did not love him? It was a question he did not wait to answer. He would have time enough to consider it later on. "Never had an undeserving man a more noble offer made him than you have just made me. But, putting aside the insuperable difficulties in the way of carrying it out, there are other reasons which----" "There are no insuperable difficulties in the way of carrying it out," broke in Nell. "Every arrangement has been made, as you shall presently hear. But remember this, that we have no time to waste in explanations or idle objections." Dare bowed as accepting a correction. "Then permit me to say as briefly as may be, Miss Baynard, that it cannot be, that on no account whatever could I, or would I accept such a sacrifice at your hands." "A sacrifice! Oh, the mockery of the phrase!" Although she spoke aloud, the words seemed addressed to herself rather than to Dare. She had removed her riding gloves, and the long, slender fingers of one hand now gripped those of the other convulsively. Her sharp, white teeth bit into her underlip and left their mark there. She seemed to be bracing herself for a final effort. "You are no doubt aware," she resumed, "that your trial will come on in about three weeks from now." "That is a circumstance I am not likely to forget."