“They will let you have almost anything you desire now, dearest.”
“Except life and liberty, or anything that might help me to either—yes, I know that! You will not think it levity in me, even in my awful position, to ask to have my little dog, will you?”
“No, my own dearest one, no; I only see in your desire the all-embracing goodness of your heart, that, like the love of Divine Providence, encircles all creatures, from the highest to the humblest,” replied Malcolm, bowing his head over her hand, and pressing it to his lips, as he turned to leave the cell.
He looked back for Annella, who remained spell-bound as before.
“Come, Miss, time is up, and you must leave with Mr. Montrose,” said the warder, touching the girl’s shoulder to call her attention.
Annella started from her trance, and arose to obey; but before leaving the cell she turned to Eudora, and, in an eager, earnest, breathless whisper, exclaimed:
“Do not resign yourself to death! Keep up your heart—look forward to life and liberty! for I swear before Heaven, and by all my hopes of salvation, that you shall be saved!”
To Eudora these words seemed nothing more nor less than those of madness—the expression of a compassionate soul wrought by sympathy to frenzy. But before she had considered how to reply to them, the speaker had vanished.
Annella joined Malcolm in the lobby; but it was not until they were fairly outside the prison walls that she spoke, but without the tone of reproach Malcolm expected to hear in her voice. She merely said:
“So you have failed again?”