"I have seen her," he said, in a low tone. "She sends loving messages to you. I expected to find her heart-broken and prostrate, but she is imbued with a strange strength and resignation. The worst is over, she says she must not think of the past, but of the future. She is sustained by a consciousness of innocence, and is inexpressibly comforted by the thought that we know she is innocent. She begs that you will not grieve too deeply for her." He paused a moment or two. "That is the sense of her message to you. She is an angel and a martyr. I can trust myself to say nothing more of my visit to the prison. I must not remain with you now, unless you have something to communicate which may help me in the task upon which I am engaged--of even yet clearing her from the wicked charge. Yes, Aunt Leth, I will move heaven and earth to establish her innocence. I will not rest, I will not sleep--" Again he was compelled to pause; and when he could control himself he said: "I must see Tom Barley. Has he been here to-day?" "Yes," replied Aunt Leth; "but I fear it will be long before he comes here again. There was a dreadful scene between him and 'Melia Jane. The girl stormed at him for giving his evidence about seeing a woman in a blue dress at Parksides on that fatal night. She said if it had not been for him our poor Phoebe would have been set free; and when he asked what else he could do but answer the questions they put to him, she answered that he ought to have cut his tongue out first." "'Melia Jane was right," said Fanny. "I don't see that he could have acted differently," said Fred, thoughtfully. "Without his evidence the case against my suffering angel would have been incomplete; but there can be no question that he spoke the truth. He did see a woman in a blue dress at Parksides; but it was not Phoebe. The evidence relating to the dresses worn by Mrs. Pamflett is not to be shaken, and it could not have been that she wore on that night a blue dress in order to throw suspicion upon our innocent darling." "She could have worn such a dress," said Uncle Leth, "and afterward destroyed it." "That is possible enough; but she could have had no hope, supposing her to be the guilty wretch--" "Or her son," interposed Fanny.