“How can I face that crowd and him, and tell what I saw, and what will he think of me,” she said, as she remembered all Paul’s kindness to her and thought of the return she was to make. “I’ll write and tell him how sorry I am,” she determined at last, and without waiting to consider, wrote the note, which was as follows: “Mr. Ralston: If I could keep from appearing against you next Monday I would. I have prayed so many times that God would take away my memory so that I could not remember what I saw and heard, but the more I pray the more distinctly I see it all before me. Not a thing is missing. I hear your voice, I see your face just as you looked at me and spoke to me when I leaned from the window. If I fall asleep I dream about it and I think of it all day with a feeling in my head which I cannot describe. It is like a band of hot iron across my forehead and I sometimes look in the glass to see if there is not a big dent there. I wish I had never come here, so much that is dreadful has happened; and oh, the awful things the papers say! I was never engaged to Mr. Percy,—never could have been,—and my testimony will not be influenced by any prepossession in that direction. My cheeks burn when I think of it. How could I be prejudiced against you,—one of the kindest friends I have ever had. I wish it were right to tell a lie, but I dare not. Forgive me, and do not hate me when you see me stand up and swear against you. You will get clear some way, I am sure. Everybody hopes it; everybody is sorry for you, and except your father and mother and Miss Percy, no one so sorry as I,— ELITHE.” It was too dark for Paul to read this note when it was brought to him, and for a time he sat talking with, or rather listening to Tom, who told him of the general gloom pervading the town as the trial drew near. He did not say that the shops were closed and there was crape on every door, but he did intimate that there was neither bathing, nor wheeling, nor dancing, nor sailing, nor playing on the tennis court; and this in part was true, for the social atmosphere was clouded with apprehension, and there was but little interest in anything of a festive nature. Only the children were light hearted and happy. They played on the beach and in the water and in the parks as usual, but when their voices grew very loud and hilarious they were as quickly hushed as if the sound could reach Paul in his prison and add to his cup of bitterness. All this and more Tom repeated, and Paul could not help feeling cheered as he listened. “Thank you, Tom,” he said, when the latter rose to go. “You can never know all you have been to me these last few weeks, and I know there is nothing you would not do to save me if you could.” “Nothing, so help me God, nothing!” Tom answered with a choking voice and holding fast to Paul’s hand as if loath to let it go.