"You mean that it is my own fault that you are my husband?" she interrupted, her blue eyes flashing like steel. "If you choose to blame me for that, I have not a word to say in my own defense." "If I dared, I would bless you for it," he said, in a low voice, "although you, perhaps, were waiting impatiently for news of my death, when I interrupted you?" Remembering how she had been employed, Prue had no answer ready. She was silent a minute, and then abruptly blurted out, "How did you escape, and why did you come here? Good Heaven, if they should follow you and find you here! Oh, how could you betray me? Sure, I am the most unfortunate woman in the world—!" "Listen to me; there is nothing for you to be alarmed about," he cried, hurriedly coming to her and seizing her hand. "I am free—reprieved—pardoned. No one will follow me here; no one—" He stopped suddenly, and looked fixedly at her. "What has happened?" he asked, in a tone of deep concern. "You are so pale—your eyes are red and swollen—you have been weeping?" "I thought you were dead!" she said half-resentfully. "And you wept because you thought I was dead?" he said incredulously—"You were sorry for _me_?" He stood gazing at her, lost in an amazement so profound that it seemed like a reproach. She drew away her hand. "I should be sorry for any poor soul condemned to die," she said, with an effort at indifference. "When last I saw her," he said doubtfully, as if reasoning out a strange problem against which his reason contended, "she was fresh and smiling, and prinked out like a princess for her marriage with a highwayman. To-day she is pale and sad," his eye ran over her somber figure, "and all in black—for my sake—" "You run on too fast!" Prue interrupted petulantly. "Can I not wear a black dress without putting on mourning for your sake? Methinks I’ll have to wear it for my own! Never, surely, was a woman so caught in her own trap!" She cast her eyes round, as though for visible means of escape. Suddenly a thought of horror glanced into her mind. "Did you come here to claim me?" she gasped, sinking into a chair, pallid with fear. "You need not fear me, I have no such design upon you," he said, regarding her with pitying tenderness. He was sorely wounded, though more for her sake than his own. "Can you not understand that I would rather perish by the most cruel tortures than give you one moment’s pain? Oh! rather than see that look of fear and hatred upon your face, I would I were now hanging upon the gallows! At least, you would pity me there, and if not, I should be none the worse off for your scorn. I am free, it is true, but an exile, and unless I leave these shores within eight days, an outlaw. In a week, then, should I be still alive, I shall be dead in law and you will be free from me for ever."