So they sent two men across the sea in search of the exile, but the slow days dawned and waned and no tidings came to hint at their success. Meanwhile hope began to fade in the hearts of those at home. The pale young prisoner grew frailer and whiter daily, until life seemed to hang upon a thread so slender that her friends doubted if she would survive until that fatal 25th of July. They brought her books and flowers to beguile the weary time. She only wept over the sweet blossoms that recalled to her the days when she was free and happy. Of the books she chose only the sweetest and saddest love-stories, and the most melancholy poems. Minnie Fielding came to see her just as often as they would admit her. To this gentle woman, her old friend and teacher, Nina showed the sadness of her heart as she did to no one else. “I have read all the books and the stories, but I cannot find among them all a single story as sad as mine,” she said, “I do not believe that any woman’s love ever had as sad an ending as mine. I loved my husband for five long years tenderly and truly, and all the while he was far away from me and hating the fetters that bound him to me, his heart given to another woman. At last when he came home and I learned the bitter truth, Fate played me one of her cruelest tricks. He learned to love me, and I missed the knowledge until all too late. If I die upon the scaffold it will not be because I am a sinner, for my hands are clear of Sibyl St. Alban’s blood. It will be because I loved so deeply, and because my jealous pain drove me momentarily mad.” She opened one of her books of poems, and read aloud: “Let him stand In my thoughts untouched by blame, Could he help it if my hand He had claimed with hasty claim? That was wrong, perhaps--but then Such things be--and will again! Women cannot judge for men.” Mrs. Fielding kissed the poor, pale lips tenderly. “Poor darling! So you forgive him all the sorrow his weakness and folly brought upon you,” she said. “Yes, because he loved me at the last,” Nina answered. “Oh, Mrs. Fielding, that lawyer was unjust to me, when he said that I had parted Talbot from his love. They were parted before he came home from college. I heard him tell Aunt Drusilla that she had thrown him over to marry a rich old man.” “She was a bad woman, and Mr. Strangemore was weak indeed to fall a victim to her wiles again. You are very good to forgive him, dear,” said Mrs. Fielding. “Many women in your place would hate him.”