She looked around the cell, and then into the eyes of her father.
"I have given you this home—I, who have sought for you—prayed—prayed, father, not as you pray, but madly, wildly prayed for one look, one word—pardon, pardon! I have got it—I see it—you pardon me with your eyes, my father; but oh, how wretched I am—I, who gave you a home like this!"
"No, not you, but God!" answered the old man. "I knew from the first that our Father who is in heaven had not afflicted his servant for nothing. All will be well at last, Ada."
"But you will die! Even to-day will they sentence you!"
"I know it, and am ready; for now I begin to see how wisely God has willed that the last remnant of an old man's life shall be the restoration of his child."
"But you are innocent, and they will kill you!"
"They cannot kill more than this old body, my child. Even now it feels the breath of eternity. What though the withered leaf is shaken a moment earlier from its bough!"
Ada held her breath, and gazed upon her father, filled with strange awe. The quiet tone, the gentle resignation in his words, tranquillized her like music. She could not realize that he was to die. Her soul was flooded with love; her eyes answered back the holy affection that beamed in his. For that moment she was happy. Her childhood came softly back. She forgot her own sin alike with her father's danger.
"Now," said the old man, "tell me all that I do not know. By what means has God sent you here?"
At these words Ada half arose; all the joy went out from her face; her eyes drooped; the lines about her mouth hardened again; she attempted to look up, failed, and with both hands shrouded her guilty features.