Miss Strangemore and Kitty and the Fieldings prayed silently; Nina sat still as a marble statue, holding tightly clasped in her hands her husband’s letter and a bouquet of white roses and heliotrope that Minnie Fielding had given her. In the dense, suffocating air of the court room that warm June night the fragrance of the flowers was strong and almost oppressive, but she held them in an almost mechanical grasp, while her thoughts wandered far from the scene and tried to fancy where Talbot could be in this hour of her humiliation and awful peril. “Oh, if I had only known that he repented his folly, and that he loved me that night, I would not have run away,” she said over and over to herself. “But that dreadful woman carried away his letter and so ruined my whole life. Oh, how wicked she was, and what cruel falsehoods she told me, for in the light of this letter everything she told me was a lie. Oh, I wish that I could see my husband once more even if I have to die, to tell him how dearly I loved him all the while, and how I love him still, although my love has only brought me the cruelest sorrow and shame!” It was almost like a religion to her, this love that the dying woman had solemnly bade her give to Talbot Strangemore. It had an element of sacredness in it. Heretofore it had been all sacredness and sorrow. Now it had a thrill of joy and passion in it. Talbot, her husband, loved her back again, and would have wished no higher joy than to have her for his bride. She said the words over to herself many times, and her senses reeled with the joy of the thought until at moments she forgot the deadly peril that hung over her, and remembered only her husband and their mutual love. “He loves me, and he would grieve if I died,” she said, and there was so much gladness in the thought that she prayed heaven passionately that she might live to be happy with him yet. She repeated to herself some lines read long ago, and vaguely remembered: “Is it indeed so? If I lay here dead, Wouldst thou miss any life in losing mine, And would the sun for thee more coldly shine, Because of grave-damps falling round my head? I marveled, my Beloved, when I read Thy thought so in the letter. I am thine---- But ... _so_ much to thee? Can I pour thy wine While my hands tremble? Then my soul, instead Of dreams of death resumes life’s lower range!” The hours waned. People grew impatient in the hot close air, waiting for the verdict. How long the jury stayed! It was past ten o’clock. Minnie Fielding pressed close to her friend and former pupil’s side. She pressed her hand over the small white one that held Talbot’s letter. It was cold as ice, but Nina’s cheeks were flushed, and her eyes were bright and burning. “Oh, my darling how cold your hands are, but your face is on fire. This suspense is killing you,” she said. But Nina shook her head.