"Having twice refused to become a member of Mrs. Churchill's house-party for this week, I was much annoyed, perplexed and pained when most unexpectedly I found myself reluctantly obliged to come here for a few hours. In the midst of preparations for my long absence, I was summoned to a grief-stricken family whose pitiable condition of abject misery and terror no verbal picture can exaggerate. My old friend, Mrs. Ronald Clinton, is prostrated by sickness and sorrow, and unable to leave the room where her baby girl is critically ill, probably dying; while in the same house the aged mother-in-law raving with brain fever calls for the son who is sentenced to be hung next week. Neither his wife nor his mother can visit the distant prison to say good-bye to the doomed man; In her despair, Amy Clinton, having exhausted all other means of saving her husband, has seized the fatuous belief that my prayer might possibly have some effect. It was in vain that I refused to come, assuring her that I was the very last person to send as envoy to your Excellency, who had declined her own appeal when she knelt at your feet. She persisted in her frantic pleadings because of an inexplicable telegram from Ronald Clinton, telling her the prison chaplain was sure I could secure help for him. On what grounds he based this preposterous advice Amy was absolutely ignorant, as neither of us can learn even the name of the chaplain. Knowing the futility of my mission, I yielded at last to her frenzied prayers--I drank the cup of bitter humiliation--and as my last sacrifice on the altar of friendship for a broken-hearted wife and mother, I surrendered my self-respect, my womanly pride. Read this message to the wife, and then I feel assured you will realize what a terrible ordeal has finally forced me into your presence." She held the telegram toward him, and taking the paper he read it carefully more than once. Refolding it, he bowed and returned it, but the locked lips yielded no comment. She tore the slip into shreds, and her hands trembled as she asked: "Can your Excellency imagine why this mournful and mortifying task was laid on my unwilling shoulders, by the chaplain who is an utter stranger?" He looked intently into her beautiful eyes, and his voice lowered to a key of icy sternness. "If Miss Lindsay desires the name of the chaplain, I can gratify her wish. Peyton Knox has recently officiated in the prison chapel." A hot wave crimsoned her cheeks, and she shrank as if from a blow, but as the color ebbed, she drew herself proudly to her full height.