Prisoner and advocate were left together amid recesses of impenetrable gloom in the darkest corner of the large apartment. It seemed to enfold them, and to render the pallor of their faces almost invisible. The eyes alone encountered those of each other, and even these could embody no phase of meaning. A strange continence, as sharp and clean as that of a hero of fable, had begun to cleanse the veins of the advocate. In the presence of this stealthy thing his nature had never seemed so fine, so valiant, so full of subtle penetration; nor had it ever felt so girt with mastery, so completely enamored of its own security. “I shall know what words to speak to-morrow,” he said, in a hoarse undertone. “Will they not be spoken for yourself?” whispered the dismal low voice. “How? In what manner?” “You will speak to make a name.” “Also for the salvation of yours.” “Mine does not matter; it is not my own.” “You trust me, do you not?” “I trust you; yet you drew your hand away so quickly when you knew it was not the warder who was the murderess. Give it to me again.” There was something so curious in the prisoner’s fragility, something so strange in her cowed air, that it seemed to pervade the advocate with the stealth of a drug. But the emotion of disgust with which he had withdrawn his hand when first he grew conscious that he touched her was no longer present when he offered it again. The second time she clasped her fingers round it so that their pressure seemed to sear his skin. It had the heat of a live coal. In releasing his hand she let her fingers yield it so imperceptibly that he did not know the precise point at which it had ceased to be held; and he was afraid to make a motion of withdrawal, lest it should be interpreted as a repetition of that which had dealt her a wound. He tried to see her face, but in the darkness there was no lineament to decipher. “This is my deliverer,” he heard her breathe. “How have you come to know it?” The advocate was devoured by an intolerable curiosity. “Your hands--your hands, they are so powerful; are you not so strong?” There was nothing in these words that the advocate had expected; the voice, the manner of their utterance, their apparent irrelevance, made a strange effect in his ears. “They will not do me to death,” she said, in a tone he could hardly hear. “I never tasted life until I was brought into prison. And you cannot think how sweet it is to me. Everything has become so beautiful: the birds, the trees, and the sky, and the crowds of people and the mud of the great city.” She clutched the hand of the young advocate with a convulsive shudder. “Your quietness tells me that you understand.” Her voice was touched with ecstasy. “You do not answer or seek to console me. You are the one I have dreamed of in prison. Where is your hand?” Again Northcote yielded to her entreaty, this time without a sense of repulsion.