There was no answer but a burst of sobbing from Mary, who turned from me. I sank back into the darkness of the cell, while she walked bowed as though with age and sorrow towards the open door. She passed through, the door clanged behind her and the key grated in the lock. With ears pressed tight against the door I listened eagerly to the sound of their retreating footsteps. Would she escape, or would some mishap reveal her to the jailer? My heart, that was in a tumult of suspense, bounded for joy when at last I heard the massive oak door close with a hollow clang on the doorposts. My loved one was free, and I--well, what did it matter? I had held her in my arms once again: I had kissed her sweet lips and with that memory to uphold me I could go bravely to my death. But hope beats high in the heart of youth. I ran my finger over the stout file which I had brought with me. In an hour--or at most two--I should be at liberty. I had learned from Hector that the jailer would make a round of the Tolbooth at ten o’clock, now near at hand. On the last stroke of the hour on the town clock a beam of light came through the grille in the door and a voice said: "Is a’ richt wi’ ye?" I answered in a whisper. Whether all was right or not the jailer did not trouble to ascertain, for, with a grunt, the light was withdrawn from the grille and the sound of his footsteps faded away in the distance. I threw off the woman’s garments that encumbered me. The moment had come for action. The window, with its solitary bar, was set high above my head, and groping anxiously over the wall below for any means by which I might raise myself up to it, I found a few chinks, but none of them large enough for the purpose. Rapidly and noiselessly I scooped some of the mortar from between several of the great stones, and in a few minutes had succeeded in clambering up to the window and laying hold of the upright bar with my left hand. The wall was a thick one, and the outer sill of the window sloped down at a sharp angle from the bar. I recognised that once the bar was severed I should have little difficulty in squeezing myself through the window. Confidently I set to work, beginning at the top of the bar and filing on the inner side. I soon discovered that the iron was weather-beaten and rusty, and as the dust of it fell upon my left hand, tightly clasped about the base of the stanchion, I rejoiced to find that my task was proving easier than I anticipated. But when the bar was filed nearly half through at the top, the cramped position in which I was compelled to work began to weary me, and I dropped down upon the floor of the cell to rest. When I climbed up again, I passed the file to the outer side of the bar and set to work on it at the base. My hope was that when I had filed the stanchion half through, top and bottom, I might be able to break it. The tool bit into the iron, and I worked feverishly. Suddenly there was