As I crept through the narrow space between the wardrobe and the door, I grasped Kitty's hand with an involuntary shudder. "Don't go away," I whispered. "No, Miss. I'll stay just outside the door and watch, and you must come the very minute I tap at it, for Mrs. Roberts will be back as soon as ever she has given out the things for tea. I won't go away, don't be afraid, Miss." The twilight was too dim for me to distinguish anything as Kitty closed the door softly behind me, and I groped my way into the room. "Victor!" I said, in a whisper, as no sound met my ear. A dark figure between me and the faint light of the window, started forward as I spoke, and, in another moment, my hands were grasped in hands as cold and trembling. Did it give me a shudder to remember the work those hands had done in the grey shadowy twilight, one short week before? I tried not to think of it. I tried to remember it was the man who loved me--who had risked his life for my love. But crime and remorse had strangely darkened and changed him. There was a wild sort of despair in his very tenderness--a fierce recklessness when he spoke of the future; I tried in vain to reassure myself and soothe him, but I quailed before a nature, beside the strength of whose passion, all that I had known or seen of despair and desperation faded into insignificance. A weak man can sin weakly, and bewail it feebly and with tears: a strong man, who is hurried into crime by the very intensity and strength, of his nature, turns fiercely upon the remorse that besets him; the very gall of bitterness is his repentance--blood and curses are the tears he sheds. Tenderness and confidence shrunk back affrighted from such contact; I trembled in his grasp, and he caught a suspicion of my fear. I never shall forget the agony of the gesture with which he released me, and turning away, buried his face in his hands. I started forward, and tried, in faltering accents, to assure him of--what? The words died on my lips. At that moment there was a hurried tap at the door, and Kitty's voice whispered: "Quick!" "There is your release!" he exclaimed, bitterly. "You have done your duty; draw a long breath, and hurry back into the light and freedom of the outer world. Quick! I must not keep you." "You are wrong," I murmured, "I must go, but it is just as dark and miserable outside to me, as it is here for you. Don't fancy, Victor, that there is any pleasure for me now." "You need not remind me of that!" he exclaimed, sinking down, and bowing his face on the table before him. "You need not remind me of that! I know I have dragged you down with me in my fall, and it is the cruellest thought in all my cruel anguish; but you shall be freed--be sure you shall be freed!" "Why will you talk so strangely, Victor? What have I done to make you doubt me now? I would die to serve you--I have no other thought than how to save you from the danger that threatens"----