While Mrs. Riley was sending this message, Mary, a great distance away, was emerging from the darkening and silent streets of the river front and moving with timid haste across the broad levee toward the edge of the water at the steam-boat landing. In this season of depleted streams and idle waiting, only an occasional boat lifted its lofty, black, double funnels against the sky here and there, leaving wide stretches of unoccupied wharf-front between. Mary hurried on, clear out to the great wharf's edge, and looked forth upon the broad, softly moving harbor. The low waters spread out and away, to and around the opposite point, in wide surfaces of glassy purples and wrinkled bronze. Beauty, that joy forever, is sometimes a terror. Was the end of her search somewhere underneath that fearful glory? She clasped her hands, bent down with dry, staring eyes, then turned again and fled homeward. She swerved once toward Dr. Sevier's quarters, but soon decided to see first if there were any tidings with Mrs. Riley, and so resumed her course. Night overtook her in streets where every footstep before or behind her made her tremble; but at length she crossed the threshold of Mrs. Riley's little parlor. Mrs. Riley was standing in the door, and retreated a step or two backward as Mary entered with a look of wild inquiry. "Not come?" cried the wife. "Mrs. Richlin'," said the widow, hurriedly, "yer husband's alive and found." Mary seized her frantically by the shoulders, crying with high-pitched voice:-- "Where is he?--where is he?" "Ya can't see um till marning, Mrs. Richlin'." "Where is he?" cried Mary, louder than before. "Me dear," said Mrs. Riley, "ye kin easy git him out in the marning." "Mrs. Riley," said Mary, holding her with her eye, "is my husband in prison?--O Lord God! O God! my God!" Mrs. Riley wept. She clasped the moaning, sobbing wife to her bosom, and with streaming eyes said:-- "Mrs. Richlin', me dear, Mrs. Richlin', me dear, what wad I give to have my husband this night where your husband is!" CHAPTER XXIX. RELEASE.--NARCISSE. As some children were playing in the street before the Parish Prison next morning, they suddenly started and scampered toward the prison's black entrance. A physician's carriage had driven briskly up to it, ground its wheels against the curb-stone, and halted. If any fresh crumbs of horror were about to be dropped, the children must be there to feast on them. Dr. Sevier stepped out, gave Mary his hand and then his arm, and went in with her. A question or two in the prison office, a reference to the rolls, and a turnkey led the way through a dark gallery lighted with dimly burning gas. The stench was suffocating. They stopped at the inner gate. "Why didn't you bring him to us?" asked the Doctor, scowling resentfully at the facetious drawings and legends on the walls, where the dampness glistened in the sickly light. The keeper made a low reply as he shot the bolts. "What?" quickly asked Mary.