"Eh, then we will pay him a visit in his cell," said the warden, rising.

The turnkey led the way upstairs, and they entered the prisoner's cell. The viscount, who was sitting at the table with his head leaning upon his hand, looked up at this unusual visit. His face was deadly pale; but beyond that the warden noticed nothing amiss in his appearance, and that paleness was certainly natural in a prisoner suffering from confinement and anxiety. There is usually but scant ceremony observed between jailer and prisoner; nevertheless, in this case Auld Saundie Gra'ame actually apologized for his unseasonable visit.

"Me laird," he said, "I hae a verra unpleasant duty to perform here.

Donald reports that ye are no that weel in your mind. And sic being the case, I maun, in regard to your ain guid and safety, see till the removal of a' edged tools and sic like dangerous weapons."

"Take away what you please; I have no objection," said the viscount indifferently.

Whereupon the warden and turnkey made a thorough search of the room; took away his razors and scissors from his dressing-case, and his penknife and his eraser from his writing desk.

"I shall take guid care of a' these articles, me laird, and return them to you safe, ance you are out o' these wa's," said the warden.

The viscount made no reply.

"And ye maun ken that I only remove them to prevent ye doin'

yoursel' a mischief in your despondency," he continued.

The viscount smiled with a strange, derisive, triumphant expression; but still did not reply in words.

"And gin ye will heed guid counsel, ye will na gi'e yoursel' up to despair. Despair is an unco ill counselor, and the de'il is aye ready to tak' advantage of its presence. Guid nicht, me laird, and guid rest till ye," said Auld Saundie, as he withdrew himself and his subordinate from the cell, and locked his prisoner in finally for the night.

When he got back to his office he summoned all of his officers around him and spoke to them.

"Lads, I ha'e sair misgivings anent yon Laird Vincent. Ye maun be verra carefu'! Ye mauna let his mon Cuthbert tak' onything in, until it ha'e passed muster under me ain twa een. And you, Donald, maun aye gang in wi' Cuthbert or ony ither, gentle or simple, wha gaes to see me laird, and bide in the cell wi' them to watch that the visitor gi'es naething unlawfu' or daungerous to the prisoner. An ounce o' prevention, ye ken, lads, is better than a pund o' cure!"

And having given this order, the warden dismissed his subordinates to their various evening duties.

Yes, an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure! But it is a pity the honest warden had not known when to apply the preventive agent.

Meanwhile, how had Faustina borne her imprisonment?

Why, excellently. Not that she had any patience, or courage, or fortitude, for she had not the least bit of either, or any other sort of heroism. But, as I said before, she was such a mere animal that, so long as she was made comfortable in the present, she felt no trouble on the score of the past or the future.

After her first fit of howling, weeping, and raging had exhausted itself, and she had seen that her violence had no other effect than to injure her cause, she resigned herself to circumstances and made herself as comfortable as possible in her cell. The expenditure of a few pounds had procured her everything she wanted, except her liberty; and that she did not feel the want of, as a creature with more soul might have done.

Any chance visitor who might have gone into Faustina's cell would have been astonished to see it fitted up as a tiny boudoir, and would have required to be told that there was no law to prevent a prisoner, unconvicted and waiting trial, from fitting up her cell as luxuriously as she pleased to do, if she had money to pay the expense and friends to take the trouble. And Faustina had freely spent money and freely used Mrs. MacDonald.

The floor of her cell was covered with crimson carpet, the festooned window with a lace curtain, and ornamented with a bouquet of flowers. A soft bed, with fine linen and warm coverlids, stood in one corner; a toilet table and mirror draped with lace, in another; a small marble washstand, with its china service, in a third; and a French porcelain stove in the fourth. A crimson-covered easy-chair and tiny stand filled up the middle of the small apartment.

And here, always well dressed, Faustina sat and read novels, or worked crochet, and gossiped with Mrs. MacDonald all day long. And here her epicurean meals, shared by her friend and visitor, were brought.

And here Mrs. MacDonald petted and soothed and flattered her with the hopes of a speedy deliverance.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

NEWS FOR CLAUDIA.

Oh, in their deaths, remember they are men, Strain not revenge to wish their tortures grievous.

--_Addison_.

Death--even the most serene and beautiful death, coming to a good old man at the close of a long, beneficent life--is awful. Sudden and violent death, falling upon a strong young man in the midst of his sins and follies, is horrible. But perhaps the most appalling aspect under which the last messenger can appear is that of a deliberately inflicted judicial death.

Such a doom, pronounced upon the greatest sinner that ever lived, must move the pity of his bitterest enemy.

The family at Cameron Court formed a Christian household. They received the news of Frisbie's conviction with solemn, compassionate approbation. Justice approved the sentence; but mercy pitied the victim. And they passed the day of his execution in a Sabbath stillness.

They were glad when the day was over; glad when the late evening mail brought the afternoon papers from Banff, announcing that the tragedy was finished; glad to read there that the sinner had repented, confessed, and died, hoping in the mercy of the Father, through the atonement of sin.

Each one breathed a sigh of infinite relief to find that this sinner had not endangered his soul by impenitently rushing from man's temporal to God's eternal condemnation.

No one failed to see the immense importance of Frisbie's dying confession as evidence for the prosecution in the approaching trial of the Viscount Vincent and Faustina Dugald; or the fatal effect it must have upon the accused; yet no one spoke of it then and there.

The day of stern retributive justice was not the time for unseemly triumph.

They separated for the night, gravely and almost sadly.

Claudia went up to her room, where her women, Katie and Sally, reinstated in her service, were in attendance. Sally, as usual, was silent and humble; Katie, equally as usual, talkative and dictatorial.

"And so de shamwally is hung at last! serbe him right; and I hopes it did him good; an' I wish it was my lordship an' de whited salt- peter along ob him!" she said, folding her arms ever her fat bosom and rolling herself from side to side with infinite satisfaction.

"For shame, Katie, to triumph so over a dead man! I should have thought a good Christian woman like you would have prayed for him before he died," said Claudia gravely.

"'Deed didn't I! An' I aint gwine to do it nuther. I aint gwine to bother my Hebbenly Master 'bout no sich grand vilyan! dere now!"

"Oh, Katie, Katie, I am afraid you are a great heathen!"

"Well, den, I just ruther be a heathen dan a whited salt-peter, or a shamwally, or a lordship either, if I couldn't do no more credit to it dan some," said Katie, having, as usual, the last word.

Claudia longed to be alone on this night; so she soon dismissed her attendants, closed up her room, put out all her lights, and lay down in darkness, solitude, and meditation.

Strange! but on this night her thoughts, and even her sympathies, were with Lord Vincent in his prison cell. Why should she think of him? Why should she pity him? She had never loved him, never even fancied that she loved him, even in the delusive days of courtship; or in the early days of marriage; and she had despised and shunned him in the miserable days of their estranged life at Castle Cragg.

Why, then, as she lay there in the darkness, silence, and solitude of her own chamber, should her imagination hover over him? Why did she contemplate him in sorrow and in compassion?

Because in that dreary cell she saw the twofold man--the man that he ought to have been, and the man that he was; because she was his wife, and though she had never loved him, yet with better treatment she might have been won to do so; and finally, because she was a woman, and therefore full of sympathy with every sort of suffering.

She knew that the dying confession of Frisbie would seal Lord Vincent's fate. And she contemplated that fate as she had never done before.

Penal servitude.

Why it had seemed a mere, empty phrase until now. Now it was an appalling reality brimful of horror, even for the coarsest, dullest, and hardest criminal; but of how much more for him.

Lord Vincent in the prison garb, working in chains; inquired after by curious sight-seers; and pointed out to strangers as the felon- viscount.

She meditated on the effect all this would have on him, in the unspeakable misery it would inflict upon his vain, insolent, self- indulgent organization; and she marveled how he would ever endure it.