"No, old fellow," he said quietly. "I am not going mad--unless it was madness to obey the promptings of my poor, weak nature. Better come with me to my rooms, for something seems to keep on asking me if life is not all one great mistake." Meanwhile at Miss Jerrold's house, the moment the door was closed, Myra had caught wildly at her cousin's hand. "Quick!" she cried in a hoarse whisper, "take me to our room," and with wild energy she hurried her cousin upstairs to close and lock the door before she gave vent to the wild, hysterical burst of agony that was struggling for exit. "So cruel--so heartless," she sobbed as she paced the floor, wringing her hands and rejecting every attempt at consolation on her cousin's part. "He must have known. Oh, it's maddening." "Myra, be calm, be calm." "Calm!" cried Myra wildly, "it is not possible. Do you think me made of stone instead of flesh and blood like yourself? You--my father--my aunt--all treat me as if I were a child whom a word or two will set free. I tell you again I am that man's wife. In my weakness and folly, blind to what I called my duty, I went headlong into that gulf of despair. I swore before the altar to be his wife till death should us part. It is my fate, and there can be no change." "But Myra--dear cousin!" "I tell you, Edie, there is not an hour passes without my seeing him once more before me holding my hand, with his eyes telling me that I am his wife, and," she cried passionately as a low tapping was heard at the door, "I am waiting for the day when he will be released and come, wherever I may be, to claim me and bid me follow him, whatever may be his future. And I shall have to go--I shall have to go." "Myra," whispered Edie, throwing her arms about her cousin's neck, "hush, pray! Pray hush! Auntie is at the door; she must not hear you talk like this. These terrible fits are only for me to hear; my own sister, pray, pray be calm." Her touch, her kisses, had the desired effect; and as the tapping at the door was resumed, Myra sank down sobbing on a chair, and buried her flushed face in Edie's breast. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. BREAKING THE CAGE. Night at The Foreland--and a dark night; the moon not due for hours, and when she rose not likely to be seen for the heavy clouds which blotted out the stars. Lights were out in the great building, which stood up by day gloomy, many-windowed, and forbidding on the huge promontory, crossed by wall and works, and with sentries between the convict establishment and the mainland. The other three sides had the waves, which washed the nearly perpendicular precipices, for warders, and it was only here and there that an active man well acquainted with the cliffs could descend to the sea, and such an acquaintanceship was not likely to be made by the wretched men marched out, fettered and guarded, to the great quarries day after day, and then carefully watched back to their cells.