"Why do you weep?"--but Elizabeth, so speaking, bowed to the floor by her mother's side, and wept with her, and the tender arms maternal clasped her close; and the girl did not see when her mother's eyes looked upward, nor did she hear when her mother's voice said, with a saint's entreaty, and a lover's faith, "O Saviour!" That night Elizabeth went for the tray which her father had left in the prisoner's room when he carried him his supper. No danger that Adolphus would stand to gossip now with any man, for a moment. His heart was sore at the prospect of his daughter's departure, at the prospect of actual separation, every feature of which state of being he distinctly anticipated; and yet he would have scorned himself, had he thrown in the way anything like the shadow of an impediment to her departure from Foray. So far from that, he was already doing everything, in act and thought, by which that going might be made more certain and immediate. Elizabeth found the prisoner sitting before his untasted supper. She went up the room at a rapid pace. "Strength does not come of fasting," said she, as she glanced at the table. "Appetite does not come of torpor," was the reply, spoken almost as quickly; he seemed to be echoing her tone. She looked at him surprised; so much energy of speech she had not expected of him, and never before had heard. "I must wait for the tray," said she; and she took her usual stand by the window. "Eat something to please my mother,--she will be so troubled." At this he took his spoon and tasted the porridge, which had grown cold in the dish before him. Now, as she stood there waiting, a curious state of mind was that through which Elizabeth passed. When he answered her greeting, it was with less apparent weariness, less exhibition of sad indifference to all things, than usual,--with some animation, indeed; not at all as one speaks who is dead to every hope. And with this utterance, which on any other day would have lightened the burden Elizabeth bore, a new darkening of the spirit of heaviness seemed to fall upon her. She knew that by her he must have come to--whatever hopefulness he had; and she would give him freedom that she might see his face no more! "There is no crucifixion without pain." It is never with a light heart that man or woman attends his or her own immolation. There is awful terror in the triumphs of the divine human nature. If, indeed, _Suttee_ is noiseless, superstition and force have stifled the voice of the widow.