"Well, Cuthbert, well! did you find an opportunity of delivering the note?"

"Yes, me laird, I did," said the old man hesitatingly.

"Secretly?"

"Y-yes, me laird!"

The viscount looked relieved of a great fear. He saw the great disturbance of his servant's face, but ascribed it to the effect of his interview with the condemned man, and sympathy for his awful position, and he inquired:

"How did Frisbie look, Cuthbert?"

"Like a ghaist; na less! pale as deeth; trembling like a leaf about to fa'! and waefully distraught in his mind!"

"Did he get an opportunity of reading my note while you were with him?"

"Oh, me laird, I maun just tell you! I hope there was na ony great secret in that same note."

The viscount started and stared wildly at the speaker, but then everything alarmed Lord Vincent now.

"What do you mean?" he asked:

"Oh, me laird! I watched my opportunity, and I gi'e him the note in secrecy, as your lairdship tauld me; and I stooped and whispered till him in his lugs to keep the note till he was his lane, and read it then. But the doitted fule, gude forgi'e me, didna seem to compreheend; but was loike ane dazed. He just lookit at me and then proceeded to open the note before my face. Whereupon the turnkey lad takit it out fra his hand, saying that the prisoner, being a condemned man, maunna receive ony faulded paper that hadna passit under the observation of the governor, because sic faulded packets might contain strychnine or other subtle poison. And sae he took possession o' your note, me laird, before the prisoner could read a word of it; and said he maun carry it to the governor whilk I suppose he did."

To see the consternation of the viscount was dreadful.

"Oh, Cuthbert, Cuthbert, the cowardice of that miserable wretch will ruin me!" he exclaimed bitterly.

"Oh, me laird, dinna rail at the puir sinfu' soul for cowardice.

Sure mesel' would be a coward gin I had the waefu' woodie before my ees. 'Deed, me laird, and me heart is sair for the mischance o' the note."

"It cannot be mended now, Cuthbert."

The time was drawing near for the closing of the prison doors, and the old man took a dutiful leave of his master and departed.

On his way downstairs he was called into the warden's office, and while there he was severely reprimanded for conveying letters to the convict, and forbidden under pain of punishment to repeat the offense. The old man bore the rebuke very patiently, and at the lecture that was bestowed upon him he humbly bowed and took his leave.

This night the viscount, exhausted by long vigilance and fasting and by intense anxiety, threw himself upon his bed and slept for a few hours. The next morning, Saturday, in his restless trouble he arose early. And in the course of the day he questioned everyone who came into his cell concerning the state of mind of the condemned man.

Some could give him no news at all; others could tell him something; but they differed in their accounts of Frisbie--one saying that he had asked for the prison chaplain, who had gone in to him; a second that he was very contrite; a third that he was only terribly frightened; a fourth that he was as firm as a rock, declined to confess his guilt and persisted in declaring his innocence. The viscount endeavored to believe the last statement.

The miserable day passed without bringing anything more satisfactory to Lord Vincent. And the night that followed was a sleepless one to him.

Sunday came; the last day of life that was left to the wretched valet. On Sunday it was obligatory upon all the prisoners confined in that jail to attend divine service in the prison chapel. They had no choice in this matter; unless they were confined to their beds by illness they were obliged to go.

On this particular Sunday no prisoner felt disposed to place himself on the sick list. Quite the contrary. For, on the other hand, many prisoners who were really ill, in the infirmary, declared themselves well enough to get up and go to chapel.

The reason of their sudden zeal in the performance of their religious duties was simply this: The "condemned sermon," as it was called, was to be preached that day. And the condemned man, who was to be executed in the morning, was to be present under guard. And people generally have a morbid curiosity to gaze upon a man who is doomed to death.

Lord Vincent was ill enough to be exempt from the duty of appearing in the chapel, and haughty enough to recoil from mixing publicly with his fellow-prisoners; but he was intensely anxious to see Frisbie and judge for himself, from the man's appearance, whether he seemed likely to make a confession.

And so, when the turnkey whose duty it was to attend to this ward came around to unlock the doors and marshal the prisoners in order to march them to the chapel, Lord Vincent, without demur, fell into rank and went with them.

The chapel was small, and the prisoners present on this day filled it full. The set to which Lord Vincent belonged were marched in among the last. Consequently they sat at the lower end of the chapel.

Lord Vincent's height enabled him to look over the heads of most persons present. And he looked around for Frisbie. At length he found him.

The condemned pew was immediately before the pulpit, facing the preacher. In it sat Frisbie, unfettered, but guarded by two turnkeys, one of whom sat on each side of him. But Frisbie's back was towards Lord Vincent, and so the viscount could not possibly get a glimpse of the expression of his face.

He next looked to see if he could find the selfish vixen who had lured him to his ruin, and whom he now hated with all the power of hatred latent in his soul. But a partition eight feet high, running nearly the whole length of the chapel and stopping only within a few feet of the pulpit, separated the women's from the men's side of the church, so that even if she had been present he could not have seen her.

"The wages of sin is death."

Such was the text from which the sermon was preached to the prisoners that day. But the viscount heard scarcely one word of it.

Intensely absorbed in his own reflections, he paid no attention to the services. At their close he bent his eyes again upon the form of Frisbie.

His perseverance was rewarded. As they arose to leave the chapel Frisbie also arose and turned around. And the viscount got a full view of his face--a pale, wild, despairing face.

"He is desperately frightened, if he is not penitent. That is the face of a man who, in the forlorn hope of saving his life, will deny his guilt until the rope is around his neck, and then, in the forlorn hope of saving his soul, confess his crime under the gallows," said the viscount to himself, as he was marched back to his cell.

In that the viscount wronged Frisbie. The great adversary himself is said to be not so black as he is painted.

That same night, that last solemn night of the criminal's life, the prison chaplain stayed with the wretched man. Mr. Godfree was a fervent Christian; one whose faith could move mountains; one who would never abandon a soul, however sinful, to sink into perdition while that soul remained in its mortal tenement. Such men seem to have a Christ-conferred power to save to the uttermost.

He kept close to Frisbie; he would not permit himself to be discouraged by the sinfulness, the cowardice, and the utter baseness of the poor wretch. He pitied him, talked to him, prayed with him.

With all his deep criminality Frisbie was certainly not hardened. He listened to the exhortations of the chaplain, he wept bitterly, and joined in the prayers. And in the silence of that night he made a full confession to the chaplain, with the request that it might be made public the next day.

He confessed the murder of Ailsie Dunbar; but he denied that the crime had been premeditated, as it had been made to appear at the trial. He killed her in a fit of passion, he said; and he had never known an hour's peace since. Remorse for the crime and terror for its consequences had made his life wretched. His master, Lord Vincent, he said, had been an eye-witness to the murder; but had withheld himself from denouncing him, because he wanted to use the power he had thus obtained to compel him to enter a conspiracy against Lady Vincent. And here followed a full account of the plot and its execution.

Frisbie went on to say that nothing but the terrors of death induced him to become a party to that base conspiracy against the honor of a noble lady, and that he had suffered almost as much remorse for his crimes against Lady Vincent as for his murder of Ailsie Dunbar.

All this Mr. Godfree took down in short-hand from the lips of the conscience-stricken man.

And then, as Frisbie expressed the desire to spend the remainder of the night in devotion, Mr. Godfree decided to remain with him. He read aloud to the convict portions of Scripture suited to his sad case; he prayed fervently with him for the pardon of his sins; and then he sang for him a consoling hymn.

Oh, strangely sounded that sacred song arising in the deep silence of the condemned cell. So the night passed there.

But how did it pass in the viscount's cell? Sleeplessly, anxiously, wretchedly, until long after midnight, when he fell asleep. He was awakened by a sound of sawing, dragging, and hammering, that seemed to be in the prison yard beneath his windows. It continued a long time, and effectually banished slumber from his weary eyes.

What could they be doing at that unusual hour? he asked himself. And he crept from his bed and peeped through the grated window. But the night was over-clouded and deeply dark from that darkness that precedes the dawn. He could see nothing, but he could hear the sound of voices amid the noise of work; although the words, at the distance his window was from the ground, were inaudible.

He lay down again no wiser than he had risen up. After an hour or two the noise ceased, and he dropped into that sleep of prostration that more resembles worn-out nature's swooning than healthy slumber.

CHAPTER XLVII.