“Dead!” exclaimed the lawyer, with a start. “Yes, he died very suddenly of apoplexy in a few days after the tragedy at Selwyn Heights.” “And the young lady herself--has she no knowledge of the hour at which she left her home?” the lawyer anxiously inquired. “I do not believe that she has, but it would perhaps be better to ask her,” Doctor Fielding replied. So they went to see Nina in her prison cell. Up to that moment Mr. Davenport had had a private opinion that his client was guilty. Everything looked so black against her, the evidence was so conclusive there scarcely seemed room for doubt. It all seemed to have come about so naturally, her jealousy of the dead woman, her passionate anger and open resentment seemed to have led up so inevitably to the crime of murder that Mr. Davenport had decided in his mind that his client had scarcely the shadow of a case. But all this was before he had seen Nina Strangemore. After they went to the prison, after he beheld the lovely, hapless creature whose life, as it were, seemed hanging on his hands, a great revulsion of feeling came over the lawyer. He said to himself that although he might never be able to prove her innocence in a court of law, that the angels in heaven were not more pure and guiltless than this martyred girl. And yet she could throw no light on the subject which involved so much to her. “No, I cannot remember,” she said, hopelessly, when he entreated her to try to recall the hour when she had left her home. “It might have been midnight, or it might have been earlier, I do not know how long I sat there dazed and wretched after Mrs. St. Alban’s cruel words to me. I was too miserable to note the lapse of time. When I had decided despairingly in my mind that I would drown myself, I rose, wrote a brief note which I left for my husband, mechanically donned some dark clothing, and went away. It was quite late, I suppose. I heard and saw no one, and the lights were all out in the house.” “Try to think now,” he urged. “Did you not look at your watch before leaving? Most persons do so mechanically before going out.” “I did not,” she replied. He did not tell her how hopeless all this made her case appear. He did not have the heart to do so. The beautiful, anguished young face had touched him beyond words. He vowed to himself that he would do all that he could to help her, but he did not believe that he could do much. But although he did not tell her in what deadly peril she stood, Nina knew more than he guessed. Kitty’s anxious words to her the night she returned had disclosed to her her danger. When they had left her alone again in her gloomy cell, she sank upon her knees with a passionate cry wrung from the depths of her crushed and despairing young heart. “Talbot, my husband, come to me! I need you!”