"They were terrible ones. They made me see that nothing I might then do could obliterate the fact that she was lost if the world knew what I knew, or even so much as suspected it; that any betrayal on my part or act of contrition on his would only pile the earth on her innocent breast and sink her deeper and deeper into the grave she was then digging for herself; that all dreams were falsities; that Southern prisons seldom gave up their victims alive; and that if my father should escape the jaws of Libby and return, it was for me to be glad if he found a quiet grave instead of a dishonored daughter. Further, that if I crossed him, who was power itself, by any boyish exhibition of hate, I would find that any odium I might invoke would fall on her and not on him, making me an abhorrence, not only to the world at large, but to the very father in whose interest I might pretend to act. "I was young and without worldly experience. I yielded to these arguments, but I cursed him where he stood. With his hand pressing heavily upon me, I cursed him to his face; then I went back to my sister. "Had she, by some supernatural power, listened to our talk, or had she really been visited by some dream, that she looked so changed? There was a feverish light in her eye, and something like the shadow of a smile on her lips. Mrs. Poindexter was with her; Mrs. Poindexter, whose face was a mask we never tried to penetrate. But when she had left us alone again, then Evelyn spoke, and I saw what her dream had been. "'Felix,' she cried as I approached her trembling with my own emotions and half afraid of hers, 'there is still one hope for me. It has come to me while you have been away. Edward--he loves me--did--perhaps he would forgive. If he would take me into his protection (I see you know it all, Felix) then I might grow happy again--well--strong--good. Do you think--oh, you are a child, what do you know?--but--but before I turn my face forever to the wall try if he will see me--try, try--with your boy's wit--your clever schemes, to get him here unknown to--to--the one I fear, I hate--and then, then, if he bids me live, I will live, and if he bids me die, I will die; and all will be ended.'