In that solemn silence which followed his words, the room lost all semblance to the Governor’s state bed-chamber. Its spacious walls faded and narrowed to a prison cell, wherein on her straw pallet, sat a little maiden knitting. The silence was broken by a smothered sob. The faithful little friend, her face buried on Lord Christopher’s broad breast, was weeping. When at last on that kind breast her sobs were hushed, the minister spoke again and she raised her head that she might listen. He told them how the night before, after his supper at the inn-house, he had retired to his room to study. But he was restless and could not compose his thought, and whatever he wrote was meaningless. So, believing this non-success to be a reproof from the Lord, inasmuch as he was writing on a profane and worldly subject, he laid down his quill and fastened his papers with a weight, that the breeze coming in the open window might not blow them away. Then had he opened his Bible. Now the breeze was grateful to him, for his room was warm. A subtle fragrance of the meadow and the peace of the night seemed to be wafted about him. He was reminded how one of the Patriarchs of old had gone “forth into the fields at even-tide to pray.” This thought was gracious and so won upon him, that he rose and snuffed his candles, and went out into a wide field lying back of the inn. The moon was not risen, but the night was so fair and holy by reason of the starlight, that the white reflection of some young meadow birches showed in the stream, and, a distance off, he could see the moving shapes of some cows. He heard the tinkling of their bells. He felt no longer restless but at deep peace. It seemed not long before he heard the night watchman making his rounds, crying all good folk in for the night. He heard him but faintly, however, as in a dream. His heart was exceedingly melted and he felt God in an inexpressible manner, so that he thought he should have fallen into a trance there in the meadow. The summons of the night watchman began to sound louder in his ears, so, reminding himself that the greatest duty was ever the nearest duty, he turned to go toward the inn-house. Just then he saw near the cluster of meadow birches, the little maid he had visited in prison in the afternoon. She was clothed in shining white and transparent in the starlight as a wan ghost. Still, by the glory in her face, he knew it was not her Dead Shape, but her resurrected self. As he would have spoken she vanished, and only the white trunks of the young birches remained. By this, he knew it was a sign from God that she was innocent, being showed to him as if caught up to Heaven. At this he remembered her words in prison, when Sir Jonathan had sought to make her confess by threatening that she should be put to death by stones. An enraged groan and a missile thrown interrupted him. The pale student in his passion had hurled his wine-mug across the room.