was wanting, and then, almost desperately, for she must assert her sisterhood, must touch and cling to her, she seized Elizabeth’s hand and held it. "Oh, Miss Elizabeth," she said, "I oughtn’t to ’av’ sent for you. I know I had no right; but you was always good to me, and I had no one. I’ve done nothing. I’ve done nothing, honest, honest, Miss Elizabeth, I’ve done nothing. I don’t know what I’m here for at all; they won’t tell me. And Archie, too, it must have something to do with him, but he’s innocent, too. He hasn’t done nothing either. Won’t you believe me? Oh, say you will!" She still clung to Elizabeth’s hand, and now she pressed it in both her own, and raised it, and came closer, and looked into Elizabeth’s face. "Say you believe me!" she insisted, and Elizabeth, half in fear, as though to pacify a maniac, nodded. "Of course, of course, Gusta." "You mean it?" "Surely I do." "And you know I’m just as good as I ever was, don’t you?" "Why--of course, I do, Gusta." It is so hard to lie; the truth, in its divine persistence, springs so incautiously to the eyes before it can be checked at the lips. The tears dried suddenly in Gusta’s blue eyes. She spoke fiercely. "You don’t mean it! No, you don’t mean it! I see you don’t--you needn’t say you do! Oh, you needn’t say you do!" She squeezed Elizabeth’s hand almost maliciously and Elizabeth winced with pain. "You--you don’t know!" Gusta went on. And then she hesitated, seemed to deliberate on the verge of a certain desperation, to pause for an instant before a temptation to which she longed to yield. "I could tell you something," she said significantly. A wonder gathered in Elizabeth’s eyes. Her heart was beating rapidly, she could feel it throbbing. "Do you know why I sent for you--what I had to tell you?" She was looking directly in Elizabeth’s eyes; the faces of both girls became pale. And Elizabeth groped in her startled mind for some clear recognition, some postulation of a fact, a horrible, blasting certitude that was beginning to formulate itself, a certitude that would have swept away in an instant all those formal barriers that had stood in the way of her coming to this haggard prison. She shuddered, and closed her mind, as she closed her eyes just then, to shut out the look in the eyes of this imprisoned girl. But the moment was too tense to last. Some mercy was in the breast of the girl to whom life had shown so little mercy. Voluntarily, she released Elizabeth, and put up her hands to her face, and shook with sobs. "Don’t, don’t, Gusta," Elizabeth pleaded, "don’t cry, dear." The endearment made Gusta cry the harder. And then Elizabeth, who had shrunk from her and from everything in the room, put her arms about her, and supported her, and patted her shoulder and repeated: "There, dear, there, you mustn’t cry." And then presently: "Tell me what I can do to help you. I want to help you." Gusta sobbed a moment longer.