From the street outside there suddenly arose a hubbub of noise and confusion. The clatter of a vehicle driven at break-neck pace grated on the flinty pavement, and loud, excited voices were distinctly heard. No one paid much heed to it. All thought that there were some more people clamoring to get in at the iron-barred gate for a peep at the terrible show. The official advanced shrinkingly to place the black cap over Nina’s face and cover its marvelous beauty, so soon to be blighted, from the view of the curious crowd. A piercing shriek broke from those death white lips at that awful moment. She tried to lift her poor pinioned hands and wave him off. He retreated a step, full of grief and repugnance at his dreadful task. “Oh, not yet,” she cried to him, lifting to his her imploring eyes shining like black jewels through a rain of terrified tears, “Oh, not yet! Give me just one minute more of life that I may gaze upon the beautiful world I am going to leave!” The time was up but he could not refuse that thrilling prayer. He had a daughter of his own at home--a gentle dark-eyed girl no older than this one who pleaded with him so frantically for just one minute more of life. He thought of that child, and his heart swelled within him at the exigencies of his terrible duty. “One moment, then, my poor girl,” he said, huskily, and stood waiting while she looked with straining, tear-dimmed gaze upon the earth and sky. In that moment while she gazed the air was rent by a shout from myriad throats outside the prison walls--a shout of triumph and exultation. The iron gates flew open, and three men rushed into the enclosure pushing aside the crowd, and making their way to the scaffold. The prison official and many others recognized the tall form and stern face of Governor Steele in the foremost figure. As he ran he waved a white paper in his upraised hand, and shouted in clarion tones: “_For God’s sake, hold! The prisoner is pardoned!_” At that wild shout outside, and the hubbub that arose within the prison yard, Nina’s dark eyes came back in bewilderment from the clear blue heaven where they had yearningly fixed themselves. Her glance fell on the men who were rushing toward her and then for an instant of delirious joy she believed that the longing wish of her heart had embodied itself in a ghostly shape, for she was gazing once more upon the face of her husband, Talbot Strangemore, and he looked more like a dead than a living man, so worn was he with grief and woe, and so pallid with fear and horror. He gained the scaffold, he ran up the steps, and with a muttered malediction he tore the dreadful rope from her white neck. “Nina, my darling, I have saved you!” he cried, encircling her frail form with his tender arms, and, dizzy with joy, she fell forward unconscious on his breast. * * * * *