“No,” she whispered, “I am not impatient. Oh, Mrs. Fielding, do not laugh at me, please, but in thinking of my letter I forget now and then why I am here, and what I am waiting for. I am like a man drunken with strong, new wine.” The hot tears crowded into the gentle lady’s eyes. She was about to speak but the words died on her lips, chilled by a fateful sound. The long vigil of blended hope and fear was over. The jurymen were returning to the court-room. Out of doors the heat of the summer night was dissolving in heavy clouds and pattering rain-drops. A peal of thunder shook the heavens, and the fierce bright lightning flashed into the room like a sword-point, keen, blue, intense, as the judge arose to receive the verdict. “Guilty of murder in the first degree.” * * * * * They had scarcely dared to hope for anything better since the prosecuting attorney’s speech, but their hearts thrilled with anguish as the fatal words were spoken. They could not look for a moment at the beautiful girl who had so longed to live because she had found out at last that her husband loved her. A faint cry of mortal agony had escaped her lips, and then she remained still as a statue, but holding still in her tight clasp the letter that had suddenly transformed this earth she was doomed to leave so soon into an Eden. But after that faint cry of startled horror, not a word escaped her lips. Men and women gazed at her in pity and curiosity, and their hearts ached within them at the sight of the slight, dark figure, with the letter in one hand and the flowers in the other, standing there so quietly before the judge while his stern, judicial lips slowly and solemnly pronounced sentence of ignominious death upon her. * * * * * It was over, and the curious crowd were leaving the court-room pell-mell, heedless of the rain-storm raging outside, in their eagerness to breathe the fresh air again. In the tumult, while the crowd was pressed close to her, Kitty May fancied she heard a low, demoniac laugh of exultant triumph close to her ear. She turned around quickly, but there was no one beside her. In the same moment she saw Nina looking up at her with wild, scared eyes. “Oh, Kitty, surely that was a fiend that laughed,” she whispered, and the maid groaned to herself: “My God, we both are haunted by the ghost of that murdered woman!” Doctor Fielding came to lead Nina to the carriage that was to convey her back to prison. “Do not be frightened, my child,” he whispered, as he drew the small hand tenderly through his arm. “You have three months yet, and I intend to move heaven and earth to secure a pardon for you.” CHAPTER XXXIX. NINA FORGIVES TALBOT.