"Yes, a grand lady. You speak well," replied Manuel, with a smile. "The estate was once ten times as large as this island. Towns and villages are built over the land now, but the old house stands as it has stood through ten generations. There she lives. If she stands by the library-window today, she can see the church built by her great-grandfather, and the little town of Desperiers, which had in his day a population of tenantry. She can see the ponds and the park, and a garden where there are hothouses, and graperies, and conservatories, and winding walks where you might walk all day and find something new to surprise and delight you at every turn. There is a tower that commands a view of fifty miles in one direction. The old house is full of treasure. She is mistress of all,—the only representative of a long line of noble men and beautiful women who have dispensed magnificent hospitality there. The last time I saw her, Elizabeth, she was standing in the library, a woman so beautiful and so strong you would not have thought that trouble could approach her. It came through me. I opened those ancient gates for the black train, —I, who loved no mortal as I loved her! But I lost her in my fight for Truth. Shall I complain? Her heart was with mine in that struggle. Cannot Truth comfort her?"

"She is not lost to you. Sir,—you are not lost to her," cried Elizabeth, in a voice as strong as breaks sometimes through dying agony.

"I know," said he, more gently. His thought was not the same as hers; he was taking refuge in that future which remains to the loving when this life wholly fails in hope.

"You shall go back to that old place, Sir! You shall—you two—shall forget all this!"

The prisoner smiled to hear her,—a sad smile, yet a sweet smile too. He did not despise the comfort she would give him, nor resent her presumptuous speech.

"As when I dream sometimes," said he, gently,—"or in some pleasant vision. Yes, that is true, Elizabeth. I have been back, and I shall go again."

Vehemently now she broke forth. It was love defying the whole universe, if the whole universe opposed itself to the sovereign rights of love, the divine strength and the divine courage of love. —"You shall go on board some vessel, a passenger; you shall see with your own eyes; your hands shall be free to gather the sweetest rose that—ever blossomed in the world for you. Mr. Manuel, do not look so doubting,—do not smile so! Am I not in earnest? Do you not hear me? As God lives, and as I live, I will do what I promise. Why, what do you think I am here for?"

Wondering, doubting if he heard aright, Manuel looked at Elizabeth. The painful, kindly smile, the incredulity, had disappeared from his face; the power and confidence of her words seemed to persuade him that at least she purposed seriously and was not uttering mere wishes. It might be the enthusiasm and generosity of a child that inspired her speech, but its determination and gravity of utterance demanded at least a respectful hearing.

"What do you mean, Elizabeth?" he asked.

"I mean that I will go home and explain, and you shall be set free."

He shook his head. "There is nothing to be explained," said he. "I am not here by mistake. I am very clearly guilty, if there is guilt in doing what I am accused of. The hearts of those who condemned me must be changed, and their eyes opened, or I shall never be set free."

"God chooses humble agents," she said, humbly. "David slew Goliath, and he was but a lad. He will open the way for me, and by me change the hearts of those who condemned, and by me open their eyes. Therefore I shall go,—I shall surely go. Ah, Mr. Manuel, give me the picture! It is all that you shall have of the island of Foray, please Almighty God, when these doors are all open for you, and your hands are free, Sir, and we tell you to come, for the vessel is waiting!"

She went out from the room while these words took solemn possession of the place. She locked the door behind her;—no requirement of law was to be neglected or withstood; she made him a prisoner whom she would set free;—and from this interview she went away, not to solitude, and the formation of secret plans, but, as became the daughter of Adolphus and Pauline Montier, she went quietly, with that repose of manner which distinguished her through almost every event, back to her mother's chamber.

There stood Adolphus Montier, drummer to the regiment, jailer to the prisoner, father of Elizabeth,—loving man, whichever way you looked at him. He had his French horn in his hands, and was about to raise it to his lips; in a moment more a blast would have rung through the house, for Adolphus was in one of his tempestuously happy moods.

But his daughter's entrance arrested his purpose. Say, rather, the expression of her face performed that feat. He saw, likewise, the paper which she carried, the pencilled sketch,—and he followed her with his eyes when she crossed the room and placed it on the mantel under the engraving of the city of Fatherland. This act took the parents to the fireplace, for discussion and criticism of their daughter's work, and of the two homes now brought into contrasted connection.

"But you have left out the prison," was the comment of Adolphus.

"I am glad of that," said Pauline.

"But it is part of the island."

"It ought to be left out, though," maintained his wife.

"Where would you keep him, then?" asked Adolphus, a broad smile spreading over his face. He knew well enough what the answer would be.

"I'd set him adrift," was Pauline's reply, spoken without the least pretence of caution.

"Hush!" said her husband; but that was because he was the jailer. He laughed outright close on this admonition, and asked Elizabeth if she expected him to make a frame for this picture to hang opposite Chalons.

"No," she answered, "I am going to take it with me."

"Where now?" asked the parents in one breath.

"Oh, home,—Chalons."

This reply seemed to merit some consideration, by the way the eyes of Adolphus and Pauline regarded their child. They did not understand her;—her meaning was deeper than her utterance.

"To Chalons?" repeated Adolphus, quietly.

"Home?" said Pauline;—it was almost the sweetest word she knew, almost the easiest of utterance.

"You have promised me a hundred times that I should go. Did you mean it? May I go? You wish me to see the old place and the old people. But the old place is changing, and the old people are dying. Soon, if I go to Chalons, it will not be your Chalons I shall see."

Dumb with wonder, Adolphus and Pauline looked at one another. To be sure, they had done their best in order to excite in the breast of Elizabeth such love of country as was worthy of their child, and such curiosity about locality as would constrain her to cherish some reverent regard for the place of their birth, the home of their youthful love; but never had they imagined the possibility of her projecting a pilgrimage in that direction, except under their guidance. They could hardly imagine it now. Often they had talked over every step of that journey they would one day make together; the progress was as familiar to Elizabeth as it could be made by the description of another; but that they had succeeded in so awaking the feeling of their child, that she should seriously propose making the pilgrimage alone, passed their comprehension.

"You know," said Adolphus, with a shrug, "your father is an officer, and he cannot now leave his post. Are you going to take your mother along with you?"

He said these words at a venture, not certain of his ground. He was not kept in suspense long.

"My mother must not leave you," answered Elizabeth, greatly agitated, and yet speaking strongly, as one whose will exceeded her emotion.

"Then you go alone?" asked Adolphus, shortly. He could not understand her, and was thoroughly vexed that he could not; mysteries were not for him. "What is the matter? is it the prison? Wife!" he turned to Pauline, but, as he looked at her, his perplexity seemed to increase, as did his impatience also.

Wife and daughter evidently were not in league against him; she, the mother of his child, shared his anxiety and doubt. Tears were in her eyes, and he had only been impatient!—she had passed so quickly to an apprehension that was grievous, Adolphus stood the image of dismay. Those three, so entirely one, seemed to have been thrust apart by a resistless evil Fate who had some malignant purpose to serve.

Not now for the first time did Pauline see that the young face before her was pale, and grave with a gravity once unknown to it. It might be, that, for the first time, she was asking herself outright if this prison-life was to serve Elizabeth as it had served the wife of Laval,—but not for the first time was she now visited by a foreboding that pointed to this fear.

"It is the prison," said she.

"Elizabeth, is it so? Is this house going to be the death of you?" asked Montier, abruptly,—referring the point with stern authority, to the last person who would be likely to acknowledge the danger of which he spoke.

"If you think so, papa and mamma, I must give up the voyage, just to prove that you are mistaken," answered she.

"Look at her, Adolphus!" said Pauline; "remember what she was a year ago! She's not the same now. I can see it. Strange if I could not! Young people are different from old. I thought this place would never seem like home to me, but I found out my mistake."

"I knew you would," said Adolphus, quickly.

"Of course it is the place for me, on the prisoner's account. I hate the prison just the same, though. But if I was mistaken, so was Elizabeth. She thought it would seem like home to her;—it never has; it never will. But I do not think there is a chance of our being kept here long by poor Mr. Manuel. Adolphus, I am for Elizabeth's going home."

"Colonel Farel and his lady are getting ready to go in the next vessel," said Adolphus, as if in a sleep, or as though his power of speech opposed and defied him in its activity,—so bewildered did he look at his wife and daughter.

"Oh, then, may I go? It is only out and back. I will not be long away.

Then we shall all go some day together, and never, never return."

"That is my wish," said Pauline; "isn't it yours, Adolphus?"

"Yes!" And this answer was given by a man who was neither asleep nor bewildered, but by one who had put himself out of sight, and was thinking only of others.

Adolphus had not been as blind as Pauline must have supposed him when she bade him remember what their daughter was a year ago. He, too, had seen that the bloom was fading from her face, and by many a device he had striven to divert the gravity, descending upon her, from taking possession of her. Pauline's words revived every fear, every anxiety he had felt for their child. Generous as impetuous, he saw now only one thing to be done, one result to be accomplished. Elizabeth must sail in the next vessel, and he was not the man to know another quiet moment till that vessel hove in sight. That was his way; why hesitate a twelvemonth, when a moment sufficed for a decision, and the good and happiness of others were concerned in the deciding? And it was not merely his way, as has been made sufficiently apparent,—it was his wife's way, and his daughter's.

Yet fain would Pauline have entered now upon a discussion of what remained to be done; she could have gone on from this point at which they suddenly found themselves standing so wistfully; she would have made, in advance, every needful preparation and arrangement for Elizabeth, up to the time of her return. But Adolphus was in no mood for this. He must go and see Colonel Farel, he said, by way of excuse, —and he must see the doctor. It would have been a dangerous experiment, had Pauline persisted in the endeavor to discover how much he could endure. Montier felt that he was not fit for family deliberation now, and wisely made his escape from it.

"I know," said Pauline, when she and her child were left together, "I know why it is the best thing in the world for you to go on this voyage,—but—I do not know how you came by the sudden wish to go, —or if it is sudden, Elizabeth."

No demand,—no confidence required,—not a request, even, to enter into any secret counsel with her child. But that child saw the relation in which she stood to the loving woman by her side, whose eyes were gazing into her eyes, whose love was seeking to fathom her heart, and she answered humbly, and with confidence,—

"I am going to your old home, my mother,—and to see if it is true that Manuel is to die here in this abhorred prison. It is my secret, —it is my errand. I trust you, for you love me; oh, love me, my mother, and trust me! I dare not live, I cannot endure my freedom, while he is wearing out his life in a prison. Am I ill? Has it worn me to see him, this year past, dying by inches? I am glad of it,—I am proud of it! Now I will see if there is any pity or justice among rulers."

Pauline Montier was confounded by this outbreak. She had expected no such word as this she heard. It terrified her, for she was a loving woman, and she thought she heard in the voice of her daughter the voice of a woman who loved,—the impassioned, daring voice of one whom love incited to action such as sober reason never would attempt. She repented already the words she had spoken to her husband. She had no power then, could not prevail then, or the misgivings which sent Adolphus weeping into the wood, and not in search of doctor or colonel, would have drawn him back to her side, and against their love and their authority this girl had not prevailed. A question trembled on her lips. But how should she ask it of her child? She could not ask it of her child,—but as woman of woman. The simplest and the shortest speech was best; and far away were curiosity and authority.

"Elizabeth, do you love this prisoner?"

The answer did not linger.

"He is dying,—a noble man perishing unrighteously! Oh, my mother, in that land there is a lady waiting to know why the arm of the Lord so long delays! He shall not die a prisoner! She loves him,—he loves her. I will give them to each other. Only keep him alive till I come."

"My child!"

"Why do you weep?"—but Elizabeth, so speaking, bowed to the floor by her mother's side, and wept with her, and the tender arms maternal clasped her close; and the girl did not see when her mother's eyes looked upward, nor did she hear when her mother's voice said, with a saint's entreaty, and a lover's faith, "O Saviour!"

That night Elizabeth went for the tray which her father had left in the prisoner's room when he carried him his supper. No danger that Adolphus would stand to gossip now with any man, for a moment. His heart was sore at the prospect of his daughter's departure, at the prospect of actual separation, every feature of which state of being he distinctly anticipated; and yet he would have scorned himself, had he thrown in the way anything like the shadow of an impediment to her departure from Foray. So far from that, he was already doing everything, in act and thought, by which that going might be made more certain and immediate.

Elizabeth found the prisoner sitting before his untasted supper. She went up the room at a rapid pace.

"Strength does not come of fasting," said she, as she glanced at the table.

"Appetite does not come of torpor," was the reply, spoken almost as quickly; he seemed to be echoing her tone. She looked at him surprised; so much energy of speech she had not expected of him, and never before had heard.

"I must wait for the tray," said she; and she took her usual stand by the window. "Eat something to please my mother,—she will be so troubled."

At this he took his spoon and tasted the porridge, which had grown cold in the dish before him.

Now, as she stood there waiting, a curious state of mind was that through which Elizabeth passed. When he answered her greeting, it was with less apparent weariness, less exhibition of sad indifference to all things, than usual,—with some animation, indeed; not at all as one speaks who is dead to every hope. And with this utterance, which on any other day would have lightened the burden Elizabeth bore, a new darkening of the spirit of heaviness seemed to fall upon her. She knew that by her he must have come to—whatever hopefulness he had; and she would give him freedom that she might see his face no more!

"There is no crucifixion without pain." It is never with a light heart that man or woman attends his or her own immolation. There is awful terror in the triumphs of the divine human nature. If, indeed, Suttee