Nina’s Despair 214 XXXVI. The Trial 220 XXXVII. The Letter 224 XXXVIII. The Ghost again 234 XXXIX. Nina forgives Talbot 245 XL. In Egypt 253 XLI. Ferris grows desperate 259 XLII. The Naya Haye 263 XLIII. Judge Lynch 274 XLIV. Armstrong’s News 278 XLV. Talbot learns all 282 XLVI. Talbot accuses Ferris 286 XLVII. Ralph St. Alban 294 XLVIII. Flight into the desert 305 XLIX. Torn by Wolves 311 L. Journeying Homeward 320 LI. On the Scaffold 330 LII. Sibyl’s Punishment 340 LIII. Nina’s Happiness 349 LIV. The Invitation 356 LV. “It’s we two for aye.” 360 NINA’S PERIL. CHAPTER I. A BEAUTIFUL FACE. “A phial of laudanum, please!” The sleepy clerk on night duty at the drug store looked up with a start. He had not heard any one enter, but here stood a young girl by the counter, looking at him with large, sombre dark eyes, that shone wierdly out of a white, white face, framed in tresses of disordered golden hair--a face beautiful beyond all dreams of fancy but for its strange, marble pallor, and the anguished eyes out of which gleamed a desperate purpose, as she extended a snowy ungloved hand with a silver coin shining in the rosy palm, and repeated in a low, eager voice: “A phial of laudanum, please.” It was a wild wintry night in the great city, and there were none abroad except those whom necessity forced to be out. The air was full of keen, fine flakes of snow, that was frozen by the piercing wind even before it fell to the earth. The cold was intense. “The wrathful winter hastening on apace, With blustering blasts had all ybared the treen; And old Saturnus with his frosty face, With chilling cold had pierced the tender green.”