Although the grating of the hinge roused Adam, he neither stirred nor moved until, satisfied by the unbroken silence that Reuben had left him to himself, he ventured to raise his head. Where could he go? where hide himself from human gaze? And as the thought of all his shame came crowding to his mind he started up and wildly stared around, and then around again, seeing each time the walls, which looked so near, draw nearer still. No hope! no hope! Here he must live until the hour when those who brought him here would drag him forth to swear away his comrade's life. O God! how helpless he felt! and as he let himself drop down each limb gave way and nerveless fell, as if Dejection claimed him for her own. The time had been when Adam's mind was racked by thoughts of what lay in the hearts of those he had left behind: their pictured hatred and contempt stung him to madness; the words they would say, the curses they were uttering, seemed ever ringing in his ears. But Reuben's tale had for the time swept this away and filled its place with dark remorse for what he had done to Jerrem. True, Reuben had shown that Jerrem's hand had wrought his own and their destruction, but what of that? Adam through him had wreaked his vengeance on them all--had, Judas-like, delivered them to death: henceforth, branded and disgraced, he must be an outcast or a wanderer. As this fallen spectre of himself rose up and flitted in his sight a cry of wild despair burst forth, wrenched from the depths of his proud heart--a cry which some one near sent echoing back; and as it came his hands were caught, and Pity seemed to stretch her arms and fold him to her breast. Was it a nightmare he was waking from--some hideous dream in which our bodies slumber while our fancies live a lifetime? Would this vision of Eve (for Eve it was who knelt close by his side, her arms around his neck) melt away and fade as many a one of her had done before? She calls him love--her love, the husband of her heart. What! he, this guilty outcast--can he be this to any one, and most of all to Eve? A finger's touch seemed laid upon the veil which hitherto had shut out hope from Adam's view, and as it shrivelled up and rolled away the light revealed that Mercy still sat throned on high, and bowing down his head on Eve's neck he let his stricken soul take comfort in the thought. * * * * *