With a passionate yearning beyond all telling, Nina longed for her husband now. Her heart turned to him instinctively, feeling that his place was by her side in this hour of her terrible trial. “Even although he did not love me he would not willingly let me perish like this,” she thought, and it seemed to her that Talbot if he had been there could have done more for her than anyone else. It seemed to her that he had more power than any other man. But he was far away from her, the husband whom she had loved so dearly for five long years, for whom she had waited so patiently, and whose coming at last had brought her such terrible woe. Like a mocking echo the words of her old song rose in her memory: “If he would come, to-day, to-day, to-day, Oh, what a day to-day would be! But now he’s away, miles and miles away From me across the sea. “Oh, little bird, flying, flying, flying, To your nest in the warm west, Tell him as you pass that I am dying, As you fly home to your nest.” A bitter shame and dread were upon the girl as she shrinkingly contemplated the close of her trial. She had not been afraid to die at her own hands, but the horror, the disgrace of her impending doom shook her soul to its center. “To die on the scaffold--oh, I cannot bear it! How can they do it when I am innocent?” she wept, over and over, and it seemed to her that she would die of terror and shame even before the day appointed for her trial--a day that was indefinitely postponed because it was so difficult to find a jury. This case had been discussed months before by the public, and it was a horrible fact that scarcely a man could be found who had not already expressed his opinion upon it, an opinion almost always adverse to the unhappy prisoner. So while the law tarried, gathering together its terrible weapons of prosecution, Nina languished in prison, and by some mysterious psychic force the yearning cry of her soul made itself audible to Talbot far across the sea: “Talbot, my husband, come to me, I need you!” CHAPTER XXXVI. THE TRIAL. The slow days waned and faded, and Nina seemed fading with them, so pallid and hollow grew her cheek, so large and dark her sweet, sad eyes. It was summer now, but little of its bloom and fragrance penetrated the gloomy cell where she was immured. Miss Strangemore and faithful Kitty had taken lodgings near the prison and visited her every day. They would have remained with her all the time but this was not allowable. Miss Drusilla was nearly crazed with grief and horror over Nina’s trouble. She would have given a year out of her life to have known where to find Talbot Strangemore.