The moon dipped behind a bank of clouds and the prison was in darkness. Captain Protheroe rose to his feet, and stood for some time gazing before him, as one half-dazed. Then he recovered himself with a start, his eyes flashed, he looked round quickly, his whole body alert for action. Die! No surely not now, he could not die now. It was impossible; there must be some way of escape for them both. If he could but think of it! But the more he thought thereon, recalling all the tales of prison breaking and rescue that he had read or heard of, picturing the security of the shed, the disposition of the sentries, the surer did the knowledge of his utter helplessness overwhelm him, and yet the more persistently did he fight against this knowledge, assuring himself continually that death must be impossible now. *CHAPTER XV* Prudence sat on a stone seat at the bottom of the high-walled garden behind her father’s house. Around her fell the soft moonlight, clothing the daisied grass and the shimmering trees in a veil of glory. The air was full of rich scents, remembrances of the dying sweetness of the roses, the noises of the street were hushed, and there rested over all a soft whispering silence, broken occasionally by the rapturous notes of the nightingale, as he poured forth his soul in an ecstasy of love. The scene was redolent of the sweet witchery of love, and Prue with her soft eyes, her glittering hair, and the mischievous dimples deepening in her cheeks, seemed in the moonlight like some fair enchantress weaving the spell of her sweet beauty over all around. There were no traces on her fair face of the horrible scenes of which but half an hour since she had been a witness, no indication on her smooth brow of the strain of the last two days. She had not forgotten Cicely’s misery and how she lay so still, so silent in the room above; but the weight of a sorrow which did not touch her personally lay but lightly upon her young heart, and she had been conscious of a feeling of relief when she left her friend to the tender care of Mistress Lane and crept out into the silent, peaceful garden. A thorough child of nature, she sat calm and happy, her spirits in harmony with the scene immediately around her, though in the streets without the drying corpses of innocent men waved their limbs weirdly in the breeze, and women, their hearts breaking with despair, sat silent in a grief too deep for tears. Prudence sat deep in thought. She had an enterprise in view for the furtherance of which she foresaw the necessity of laying resolute siege to the will of Master Robert Wilcox. She would require his co-operation, and as she traced out the lines of her campaign, her eyes glistened brightly, and her lips curved into a roguish smile. For Prue was one to scorn an easy dominion, else had she never given her heart to so resolute a lover as Robert.