She was a magical singer, surely; and the still, cold melancholy of her tones was the very spirit and essence of death; and, like death, it pierced to the heart. She sang:

She turned quickly at a sound behind her, and saw that her husband had buried his face in the cushions of the chair, and was trembling violently. She went to him, but there was no comfort to give nor to receive. Death alone could bring release for him and for her. She could only surround him with her arms while he sobbed with the terrible hysterical sobbing of a man utterly broken down, and let him feel that he was not alone and unpitied.

“I don't know what ails me,” he said at length, trying to control himself. “Don't mind me, Annette. My nerves seem to be all unstrung. It must be that fever.”

“Oh! don't, Lawrence; please don't!” she said faintly.

He became silent all at once, and it seemed as though a chill had passed over him. She sighed drearily, and smoothed his hair with her hand. “Trust your wife,” she said. “I am by you always.”

“You are not afraid of me?” He seemed to ask the question with a kind of terror.

“My poor Lawrence! no. I do not fear you as much as you do me. Don't have such fancies.”

She did not explain in what confessional she had learned his secret; in what troubled sleep wherein the unwary tongue speaks; in what more troubled waking, when the eyes and actions speak; or in what sudden suspicion and enlightenment, coming she knew not whence. She told nothing, and he asked nothing, only leaned on her bosom, and wept again as though all his manhood had departed.

“O Annette!” he said, “I dreamed last night that I was a little boy, and that I stood by my mother while she brushed my hair into curls round her finger. I thought I had been away a long distance, and come back again, and I stood quite still, and remembered another childhood before I took that journey. I was so glad to be back—as glad as I should be now if I could go back. Some way I could see that my hair was golden, and that my mother smiled as she brushed it, though I did not look at her. Such dreams are always coming to me now. As soon as I go to sleep, I am a child that has been away and is solemnly glad to be back again. And then I wake, and am in hell!”

She went on smoothing his hair steadily.

“Some time soon the dream will come true,” she said. “Do the best you can. Do justice to the wronged. Come away with me, and we will hide ourselves somewhere in the world, and try to find peace for the days that are left. And by-and-by, Lawrence, will come the day when we shall both be as little children again, and all our terrible burdens will slip off. You must do justice to the wronged.”

“The world is wide,” she urged, “and there are safe places enough in it. Besides, money can buy anything; and he has forgiven you. He will screen you.”

“My mother!” he exclaimed. “Who will screen and save her? I will not destroy her, Annette. No, everybody in the world may perish first. I never will destroy my mother. I have done harm enough.”

“He will die in prison,” she whispered. “He has sent to Germany for help, and it did him no good. He has demanded a new trial, and there was not enough to justify them in granting it. He is in a net from which there seems to be no escape. They say that he will die.”

“You want to make me crazy!” her husband cried out, pushing her fiercely from him. “Go away! You are worse than the rest.”

There was no way but to yield to him. “Well, well, Lawrence! I will try to think of some other means.”

The season had reached early spring, and one tempestuous evening in March, as F. Chevreuse sat at home, making up some church accounts, feeling quite sure that he should not be interrupted, he heard the street-door softly open and shut, then a tap at the door of the room.

“Strange that Jane should leave that street-door unlocked!” he thought, and at the same moment heard the servant coming up-stairs from the kitchen. Her quick ear had caught the sound, and she, too, was wondering how she could have omitted to fasten the house up.

The door of F. Chevreuse's sitting-room was quickly opened, and shut again in Jane's face, and a woman stood inside. It was Annette Gerald, wrapped in a large waterproof cape, with the hood over her head.

“Send Jane away!” she said hurriedly. “Don't let her in here! Don't let her see me!”

Here Jane opened the door and put her head in, eyeing curiously the visitor, whose back was turned to her. “I'm sure I shut the door and bolted it, father,” she began, and took a step into the room. “I....”

“No matter! I'll see to it,” the priest said, waving her away.

“Oh! well, only I'm sure I locked it. And perhaps you'd like to have this lamp....”

“Jane!” he exclaimed, standing up, “when I dismiss you, you are to go.”

Jane retired, grumbling.

“She will listen at the door,” his visitor said.

F. Chevreuse flung the door open, and discovered his domestic lingering about the head of the stairs, affecting to examine an imaginary hole in the carpet.

“Once for all, Jane,” he said, “if you wish to remain in my house, you must not presume, nor show any curiosity about my affairs, nor the affairs of those who come to me. Go down into the kitchen, and shut the door, and stay there.”

Jane, albeit not very subordinate, was completely awed by a display of authority such as she had never seen before. She did not venture to resist nor complain, but returned without delay to her own place.

F. Chevreuse waited till he heard the kitchen-door close with somewhat unnecessary force, then returned to his visitor.

“What has brought you out to-night?” he asked in a low voice.

“Let me get my breath!” She was almost gasping. “Jane gave me such a fright that my heart is in my mouth.”

He set a chair for her, and seated himself near, waiting till she should be able to speak. “You had better shake the snow off your cloak,” he said.

She made a gesture of impatient refusal.

The rude mantle had slipped aside, and revealed a strangely contrasting toilet beneath. There was a shining of lustrous pale-green silk with delicately-wrought laces, a glimmer of emeralds and diamonds, and glimpses of pink roses set in bunches of green grass.

“I have been to the prison,” she whispered.

F. Chevreuse frowned, and dropped his eyes.

“The man is a fool!” she exclaimed. “He will not be saved. I had bought one of the guard. It was the hour for supper, and the man let me in, and promised that for ten minutes I might do as I pleased, and he would see and know nothing. I went into the corridor, and found the cell-door unlocked. Everything was ready, was perfect; for the storm would prevent any loungers from coming about the prison or the guard-room, and would give an excuse to any one who wanted to muffle up and cover their face. I had a large cloak all ready. But he would not go. He will not fly as though he were guilty, he said.”

“What did you say to him?” the priest inquired, without looking up.

“I told him that he could save himself, and prove his innocence afterward. I said that may be the real criminal would some day confess, and then he could come out before the world more than justified. I said that we loved and pitied him, and were unhappy at the thought of him there, and would do anything for him. He was to be secreted in our house till a way could be got for him to escape. I had left the carriage just round the corner, and John would have thought that it was Lawrence who got in with me. Mamma and Louis have gone to the President's dinner, and Gerald was to watch and let us in, and afterward come out again with me. But, no; the stubborn simpleton would not be saved. I went on my knees to him, and he was like a rock. Then the watchman knocked at the door, and I had to run. The other guard were coming in from their supper, and, if I hadn't hid behind a door, they would have seen me face to face. Oh! why did he not consent?”

She wrung her hands slowly till the jewels on them twinkled in the lamp-light.

F. Chevreuse still sat with his eyes downcast. “My poor child!” he said, “your pity for this man has led you into an almost fatal error. Never attempt such a thing again. It is not for you to cast yourself under the wheels of Juggernaut. I command you to try no such experiment again. Pray to God. That is all that you can do.”

“Yes, I know that now,” she answered despairingly. “I am utterly helpless. It is your turn. You must save him.”

“What can I do?” he asked wonderingly. “I have tried all I could, but in vain, as you know. I have left no stone unturned, and the only good result I can see is a probability that the sentence will not be executed to the utmost, and that in time something may happen to bring his innocence to light.”

“In time!” she repeated. “Have you seen the man? Why, I did not know him till he spoke. He will not live. No, there must be no delay. What you must do is this: You must go to the authorities, and say that you know who the true criminal is, but cannot tell, at least not now, and that Mr. Schöninger is innocent.”

The priest looked in her face with a gaze of calm surprise. “You mistake,” he said. “I do not know who the criminal is. If I did know, I should immediately go to the authorities, and denounce him.”

She looked him steadfastly in the face, but his calmness baffled her. He showed only a cool and dignified surprise.

“Oh! these men,” she muttered. “I feel as if I were being ground between stones.”

She stood, and the shining folds of her dress, that had been gathered up in her arms, dropped about her, and lay on the floor.

“Have you been walking through the snow in a ball-dress?” the priest asked. “Have you anything to protect your feet?”

“Oh! I have fur shoes, and my carriage is near by,” she said absently, and seemed to be considering what to do next.

“Go home now, my child, and try to put all this wild work out of your mind,” F. Chevreuse said with emotion. “Perform your own duty simply and in the fear of God, and do not try to take the burden of others on those shoulders of yours. Go home and warm yourself well, or you will be sick.”

“Oh! I am not going home,” she said, her glance caught by the sparkling of a bracelet on her arm. “To-night is a dinner and ball given to the President, you know; and since he is going away to-morrow it couldn't be put off. It must be time I was there, and I have to go home after Lawrence.”

“What! you will go to a dinner and ball to-night?” exclaimed the priest. “You feel yourself fit for company?”

She smiled faintly. “I shall doubtless be the gayest of the gay. There is not much danger of my feeling sleepy.”

“Well, women are wonderful beings,” remarked F. Chevreuse to himself.

The young woman drew her wrappings about her, and gathered up again her flowing skirts, looking to see that no stain had fallen on them; and, in arranging her toilet for a new scene, she appeared to arrange her mind also. A gentle tranquillity settled upon her face, and her head was slightly lifted, as though she were already the centre of observation to a brilliant throng.

“But you are looking very pale,” the priest objected.

“That always mends itself,” she answered carelessly. “When I have need of color, it usually comes.”

Some way, in this firm self-control, he found her more pitiful than in any abandonment of sorrow. She accepted the situation uncomplainingly, since she could do no more, and steeled herself to bear what she must.

“God bless you!” he said, when she was ready to go.

Her face stirred a little at the words. It seemed that she would rather not listen to anything of serious kindness then. Yet at the door she hesitated, and turned back. For once it was necessary that she should speak.

“Certainly not,” he replied gravely.

In a moment she had gone out, and was running through the flying snow to find her carriage, left in the next street to baffle some possible watcher.

Young Mrs. Gerald was quite right in saying that she should probably be the gayest of the gay that night; and if any other person appeared to enjoy the scene more than herself, it was, perhaps, her husband.

“A very happy couple,” remarked a sympathizing friend to Mrs. Ferrier.

“Oh! yes,” the mother sighed, nodding her head. “He is always gay when he is doing no good, and as glum as a spade when he is behaving himself. I was in hopes that his sickness would sober him, but he is wilder than ever. You should see him drive my horses!”

Her son-in-law, passing by at that moment, caught the last words, and immediately joined the two ladies. “I know that Mrs. Ferrier is complaining of me,” he said gaily. “She will never forgive me for putting her precious bays out of breath. But the truth is, I am trying to save their lives; for they are so fat now that you could drive them to death at six miles an hour.”

“O Lawrence!” Annette said at his elbow—she was always hovering near when he spoke with her mother—“they say that Strauss, the composer, you know, is really coming to America next year, and will lead his own waltzes at the concerts.”

“And, by the way, Ninon,” said her husband, “is that the Strauss who always was? I have had a waltz-writing, violin-playing Strauss in my mind ever since I was born, and he had lived ages before, and was something like Mephistopheles, to my fancy. Perhaps he is the Wandering Jew.”

“Speaking of Jews—” began Mrs. Ferrier's companion.

And here Annette drew her husband away, hanging on his arm, smiling and whispering to him, the brightest, prettiest woman in the room.

“And yet last night he was off somewhere, and she sat up for him till a quarter before two o'clock,” Mrs. Ferrier said, looking after them. “I looked to see what time it was when I heard him come in. It is wearing her out. I shall not allow her to do it again.”

It was easier for Mrs. Ferrier to say what should not be than to find herself obeyed, for the next night her daughter again kept vigil. “All I ask of you, mamma, is to let me attend to my own business,” she said decidedly.

So “mamma” toiled up-stairs to bed, and the daughter lowered the lights, took out her rosary, and began her nightly task of fighting away thought, and trying to fix her mind on the future.

She felt faint and weary, and sleep was beginning to steal over her. “I believe I will go, then,” she said. “I have not slept for three nights.”

She went, with a dragging step, over the bright carpet roses. “What would become of him if I were to break up?” she thought.

When she had gone, the man put out the hall gas, opened the doors of the vestibule, and set himself to wait. He meant to have speech of Mr. Gerald that night without Mr. Gerald's wife for a witness or any likelihood of other interruption.

About one o'clock he heard unsteady steps on the sidewalk, and, as he went to the door, Lawrence Gerald came reeling up the steps, and almost fell into his arms.

“Come into the sitting-room, sir, and lie down on the sofa. It will be easier than going up-stairs,” he said.

When he had been drinking, the young man was easy to lead, and he now submitted readily, and was in a few minutes in a deep sleep.

John locked the street-door, shut the door of the sitting-room behind him, and, seating himself, waited for the sleeper to wake.

A nervous man might have grown uneasy during that watch. There is something not always pleasant in hearing one's own breathing, and the faint occasional sounds in floor and wall, and at one's elbow, even, which, in the stillness of night, seem like the movements of unseen beings drawing near. Besides, there is a terror in the thought that we are going to terrify another.

But this man was not nervous. He was made of wholesome though rough material, and he had a strong will. He had been waiting for others to act, and had waited in vain, and now he had made up his mind that it was for him to act. Justice was strong in him, where he had the ability to perceive what was just, and he would no longer see the innocent suffer for the guilty. Besides, he reflected, there was no one else who could speak. Self-defence, or the defence of one dearly loved, or a yet more sacred motive, sealed the lips of all who knew. His lips were not sealed, and justice commanded him to speak.

Three o'clock came and went, and still the young man slept. The other sat and studied him, noting how slight and elegant was his form, how fine the hands and feet, how daintily he was dressed and cared for.

John was stout and heavy, a man of delf, and the size of his boots had once provoked from Lawrence a very provoking quotation:

and more than once the young man had mockingly pushed his two white hands into one of John's gloves.

This man? This drunkard, rather, John thought; this spendthrift, and gambler, and robber. This murderer!

The nerves of the serving-man stiffened; and if he had felt any relenting, it was over. The insolent daintiness before him stirred all his bitterness. It was for such men as this that humbler honest folks were to bow and serve, and women's hearts to break!

It must be nearly four o'clock, he thought, and glanced round at the clock. Looking back again, he met Lawrence Gerald's eyes fixed on him steadily, and he returned the look with as immovable a stare. In that instant the meaning of each leaped out of his face as clearly as lightning from a cloud. Young Gerald's eyes began to shrink in their depths, and still the other held them; he drew slowly back on the sofa, cowering, but unable to turn away.

And here John's eyes released him, for another object drew them up to the mirror that hung over the sofa. Reflected there he saw that the door was partly open, and Annette Gerald's white face looking in. She came swiftly gliding toward them, silent as a ghost, and melted, rather than fell, on to her knees before her husband, between him and the other. Her arms and bosom hid him from that relentless gaze which told that all was known, and her own face turned and received it instead, firmly and almost defiantly.

“Well, John?” she said. “Speak out what you have to say.”

“This can't go on any longer, ma'am,” he whispered; “and I should think you would have the sense to see that. If you're willing to let an innocent man suffer for him, even that won't serve you long, for he will betray himself yet. You must go.”

“Yes, yes, we will go!” she replied hurriedly. “It is the only thing to do. We will go right away.”

“I will give you three weeks to get out of danger,” he went on; “or, if that isn't enough, a month. But you mustn't lose a day. I won't see that man down in the prison die for nothing. After the four weeks from to-morrow morning are up, I shall go to F. Chevreuse with a paper that your husband will write. He may tell his own story, and make what excuses he can for himself, and it shall be for everybody to read. F. Chevreuse will carry the paper to the judges, and take that man out of prison. That is all I've got to say,” he concluded. “Four weeks from to-morrow morning!”

Annette made no further reply, only watched the man out of the room, and locked the door after him. Then she returned to her husband, and, for the first time since she had entered the room, looked in his face. He was lying back with his eyes closed, as though from faintness. She brought him a glass of wine, knelt by his side while he drank it, then took his hand in hers.

“There is no other way, Lawrence,” she said.

He was sitting up now, but kept his eyes closed, as if he could not meet her glance, or could not endure to look upon the light. He answered her quietly, “Yes, it is the only way.”

He nodded, but did not speak. The blow had fallen, and its first effect was crushing.

She brought a writing-table close to the sofa, and seated herself before it. As she arranged the paper, pens, and ink, heavy tears rolled down her face, and sigh after sigh struggled up from her heart; but she did not suffer them to impede her work—scarcely seemed, indeed, conscious of them. Everything was arranged carefully and rapidly. “Now, Lawrence!” she said, and seemed to catch her breath with the words.

He started, and opened his eyes; and when he saw her, with eyes uplifted, making the sign of the cross on her forehead and bosom, he knelt by her side, and, bowing his head, blessed himself also with the sacred sign.

Then he began his confession, and she wrote it as it fell from his lips. If now and then a tear, not quickly enough brushed away, fell on the paper, it only left its record of a wife's grief and love, but did not blot out a word of the clear writing.

When the last word had been written, and the name signed, a long ray of white morning light had pierced through a chink in the shutter, and lay across the red lamp-light.

Annette Gerald took the pen from her husband's hand. “My poor Lawrence!” she said, “you and I have got to be saints now. There is no medium for us. Pleasure, ease, all hope of earthly peace—they are far behind us. We must go out into the world and do penance, and wait for death.”

“Annette,” he exclaimed, “let me go alone! Give me up now, and live your own life here. I will never come near you again.”

She shook her head. “That is impossible. The only consolation I can have is to stay with you and give you what little help I can. You could not live without me, Lawrence. Don't speak of it. I shall stand by you.”

She opened the shutters and the window, and let the fresh morning light into the close room and over their feverish faces.

The town was waking up to a bright sunshiny day, its many smokes curling upward into the blue, its beautiful vesture of snow still clinging here and there, all its busy life beginning to stir joyfully again. They stood before the window a minute looking out, the same thought in both their minds. Then the wife leaned forward. “Good-by, Crichton!” she said, and took her husband's hand. “Come, Lawrence! we have no time to lose. The sword has been set over the gate.”

To Be Continued.