If the shock of the arrest had thus been less severe than might be supposed, so also was she less affected by her imprisonment than another person would have been in such a situation. The reason of this is evident. She had endured so much that this seemed an inferior affliction. The anguish which she had known could not be increased by this. At Dalton Hall she had become habituated to imprisonment, and of a far more galling kind to her than this. She had been in the power of a tyrant, at his mercy, and shut out from all means of communicating with the world at large. Her soul had perpetually fretted and chafed against the barriers by which she was confined, and the struggle within herself was incessant. Afterward there had been the worse infliction of that mock marriage, and the unspeakable dread of a new tyrant who called himself her husband. No prison could equal the horrors which she had known at Dalton Hall. Here in the jail her situation was at least known. From Wiggins she was saved; from her false husband rescued forever. She was now not in the power of a private tyrant, exercising his usurped authority over her from his own desire, and with his will as his only law; but she was in the hands of the nation, and under the power of the national law. So, after all, she knew less grief in that prison cell than in the more luxurious abode of Dalton Hall, less sorrow, less despair. Her mood was a calm and almost apathetic one, for the great griefs which she had already endured had made her almost indifferent to anything that life might yet have to offer. Two days after her arrest word was brought to Edith that a lady wished to see her. Full of wonder who it could be, and in doubt whether it could be Miss Plympton, or only Mrs. Dunbar, Edith eagerly directed that the visitor should be admitted. Thereupon a lady dressed in black entered the chamber. A heavy black veil was over her face, which she raised as she entered, and stood before Edith with downcast eyes. There was something in that face which seemed strangely familiar to Edith, and yet she found herself quite unable to think who the lady could be. She thought over all the faces that she had known in her school days. She thought over the faces at Dalton Hall. Suddenly, as the lady raised her eyes, there was an additional revelation in them which at once told Edith all. She started back in amazement. “Lieutenant Dudleigh!” she cried. The lady bowed her head, and said, in a low voice, “Fortescue is my real name.” [Illustration: “BUT EVEN NOW I WOULD BE WILLING TO DIE FOR HIM.”]