"Go home," said he, "and leave me in peace. I thank you for what you would have done, thank you for trying to bring Madeleine," he paused a moment. How purely he had loved her—and twice, twice she had failed him. "Yet, I do not blame her," he went on as if to himself; "I did not deserve to see her, and it has made all the rest easy. Remember," again addressing the woman whom hopelessness seemed for a moment to have benumbed, "that if you would yet do me a kindness, be kind to her. If you would atone—atone to Adrian."
"To Adrian?" echoed Molly, stung to the quick, with a pale smile of exceeding bitterness. And with a rush of pride, strength returned to her.
"I leave you resolved to die then?" she asked him, fiercely.
"You leave me glad to die," he replied, unhesitatingly.
She spoke no more, but got up to replace her garments. He assisted her in silence, but as his awkward bound hands touched her she shuddered away from him.
As she gathered the cloak round her shoulders again, there was a noise of heavy feet at the door.
The jailer thrust in his rusty head and looked furtively from the prisoner to his visitor as they stood silently apart from each other; then, making a sign to some one whose dark figure was shadowed behind him without, entered with a hesitating sidelong step, and, drawing Captain Jack on one side, whispered in his ear.
"The blacksmith's yonder. He's come to measure you, captain, for them there irons you know of—best get the lady quietly away, for he wunnut wait no longer."
The prisoner smiled sternly.
"I am ready," he said, aloud.