"My dear, I came first to the prison on the day that I knew you were to be released; I had seen it mentioned in a newspaper. But I was too late; you had already gone. And I had waited so many years, in the hope that I might take your hand, and be the first to give you welcome back to the world." "But they told me you were dead," I whispered. "They said you had--had died at sea." "When I came to you for the last time, in that dreadful place where they were to kill you the next day, I strove hard to keep your brave words clearly before me, and to do what you had begged me to do. It was as though you had died young, and so had ended the poor broken story of our loves; so at least I told myself. I would not have you think, my dear, that I was callous; but you had lain down your life, and I could serve you best, and serve your memory best, by taking up mine as you would have had me live it. So I went away with my husband out into the world, and I strove hard to set aside all my memories, and all my hopes, and all my wishes; I was as a numbed thing, existing only, and striving to forget." I looked into her eyes, and I held her hands; and it seemed as though the broken useless years dropped away from me, and that I sat there that night, cleansed and purified; I would not have changed places with any one in all the world. I had not a coin in my pocket, nor a friend in the world save this woman as forlorn as myself; but I would not have changed places with any man living that night. "I heard, of course, that you were reprieved," she went on; "and although I was glad to feel that you still lived, it hurt me most to think that you, who loved the sun and the free air and the woods, were condemned to that death in life. But I strove always to keep my promise to you, and long after my child was born I lived with my husband, and took up my dull round of daily tasks. But by degrees a change came over Lucas Savell; he grew morose and distrustful, and only long afterwards did I understand what had changed him." "What was it?" I asked. "When my father prosecuted your guardian, Jervis Fanshawe, I think he heard something about the poor innocent love story that had been ours. I think Fanshawe poisoned his mind and I believe my father breathed something of his suspicions to Lucas Savell. From that time he began to treat me badly, with little petty acts of tyranny at first, and then with open slights and small degradations, until at last my health broke down. I think he became a little frightened, and at the urgent request of the doctors he took me away on a sea voyage with the child." "But from that sea voyage you never returned," I reminded her.