It was terrible to her, so young, so lovely, so loving, with such a beautiful life lying before her, to be cut off abruptly from it all, to be standing there face to face with death and the other world. They all felt the full force of the fact, and for a moment no one could answer her. Only the silver haired minister said with a quiver in his reverent voice: “The last of earthly life, dear daughter, but the beginning of a more blessed one eternal in the heavens.” Then he knelt down and prayed for the young soul about to be torn from its earthly tabernacle, for the husband who was an exile in foreign lands knowing nothing of the terrible doom hanging over his wife, for the friends who were rendered desolate by her loss, and lastly for the judge and jury who had ordered this judicial murder, and for all those concerned in it, and when he had again commended Nina’s soul to heaven and uttered in a quivering voice the last amen, the sheriff came in to conduct his prisoner to the scaffold. Then there ensued a scene of bitter grief and excitement. Minnie Fielding and Virgie Mason fell fainting to the floor. Helen Starr went into strong hysterics, Kitty, the maid, sobbed from the depths of a breaking heart, while Miss Drusilla with a heart as sore as any repressed her emotion with an iron will, and stood gravely and tenderly by the side of the girl who was the only creature upon earth she loved and cared for. “And when they have killed my innocent white lamb I shall die of grief,” she said to herself. “But now I will be calm for my poor Nina’s sake. I will not be fainting and shrieking like these poor hysterical women, and disturbing the child when she is trying to fix her thoughts on heaven.” So she walked to the foot of the scaffold with her arms around the poor trembling child, who whispered forlornly in her ear: “Dear Aunt Drusilla, I wonder how long it will be after I am dead before Talbot learns the terrible truth? Do you think he will come back soon?” “He did not talk as if he would ever come back, dear, I believe he will be an exile all his life,” Miss Drusilla answered. “I hope so. I hope he will never come back after I am dead. I should not like for him to know that I died--like this!” moaned the girl. “I hope he will never know the dreadful truth, never, until he comes to heaven and finds me there waiting.” “But if he should come home, Nina, and have to hear the cruel truth? What can I say to him, darling? Will you leave him one last word?” She looked anxiously into the beautiful agitated young face, wondering if in this last terrible hour the young wife’s love and tenderness for the husband who had brought her such sorrow would fail her. “For myself I shall always hate my nephew, Talbot Strangemore,” the spinster vowed, grimly to herself. Nina clung to her convulsively, and sobbed through bitter tears: “Tell him that I loved him and forgave him!”