Had any one seen Ada Leicester as she descended from the carriage and walked hurriedly toward the City Prison, it might have been a matter of wonder, how a creature so elegant and so fastidious had forced herself to enter a neighborhood which few women visit, except from force or objects of philanthropy.
Jacob Strong walked by the side of his mistress. Few words passed between them, for both seemed painfully preoccupied. Jacob betrayed this state of mind by a more decided stoop of the shoulders, and by knocking his great feet against every loose brick in the sidewalk, as he stumbled along. The lady moved on as one walks in a dream, her eyes bent upon the pavement, her ungloved hand grasping the purple velvet of her cloak and holding it against her bosom. The people who passed her thought it a pretty piece of coquetry, by which she might reveal the jewels that flashed upon the snow of that beautiful hand. Alas, how little we can judge of one another! The delicate primrose gloves had dropped from her grasp unheeded, and lay trampled in the mud close by her own door. The maid had placed them in her palsied hand, as she had performed all other duties of the toilet that morning, but the wretched woman was quite unconscious of it all.
They entered the prison. A few words passed between Jacob and the warden in an outer office; then a door was flung open, and they entered an open court within the walls; stone buildings ranged all around, casting gaunt shadows athwart them. They crossed the court, passed through a low door, and entered the hall where male prisoners are kept. Ada was scarcely conscious that a score of eyes were bent on her from the galleries overhead, along which prisoners charged with lighter offences were allowed to range. At that moment a regiment of soldiers might have stood in her way, and she would have passed through their midst, unconscious of the obstruction. She mounted to the third gallery, following after Jacob, until he paused at one of the heavy iron doors which pierced the whole wall at equal distances from pavement to ceiling. An officer, who had preceded them, turned the key in the lock, and flung the door open, with a clang that made Ada start, as if some one had struck her.
"Shall I go in with you?" said Jacob.
She did not answer, save by a short breath, that seemed to tear her own bosom without yielding a sound, and entered the cell. Jacob leaned forward, and closing the door after her, began to walk up and down the gallery, but never passing more than six or eight paces from the cell.
Ada Leicester stood face to face with her father. He had been reading, and had laid the old Bible on the bed by his side as the noise of her approach disturbed him. His steel-mounted spectacles were still before his eyes, dimmed, it may be, by traces of tears, shed unconsciously, for he could not distinguish clearly through them, and with a motion so familiar that it made her tremble, he folded them up and placed them within the pages of the book.
She paused, motionless, after taking one step into the room, and but for the shiver of her silk dress, which the trembling of her limbs disturbed, as the leaves are shaken in autumn, she might have been a draped statue, her face and hands were so marble-like.
The old man looked at her, and she at him. He did not attempt to speak, and a single word died on her lip again and again, without giving forth a sound. At length that one word broke forth, and rushed like an arrow from her heart to his—
"Father!"