“Listen,” she said; “I don’t mind one cell more than another—and I know, I know, that you will save me. I feel it. I am not going to die. You are a man of genius. Everybody says that—everybody—I know that you will have an inspiration at the last minute. And I have been happy, happy, happy! Don’t forget that—not ever. I would go through twenty times what I have suffered in all my life for this past year. Don’t you think I can live on that for a month or two? Why, I can feel your touch, the pressure of your arms for hours after you leave me. I shall be with you every minute—”
He threw back his head, shaking it with a brief violent motion characteristic of him.
“Very well,” he said, “very well; it is not for me to be weak when you are strong. Perhaps it is because the prize is so great that the fight is so long and desperate. Oh, you wonderful woman!
“Tell me,” he said after a moment, “that it has all been as perfect to you as to me. I want to hear you say that, but I know it, I know it.”
“Oh,—I—I—”
Tarbox came and took her away. He looked as if he had lost home and friends and fortune, and did not speak from White Plains to Sing Sing. The details of the trip interested her less than such details are supposed to interest the condemned that look their last on sky and land; her head ached, and the glare of the Hudson blinded her; but as the train neared Sing Sing she opened her eyes suddenly, then sat forward with a note of admiration.
The river was covered with a dense rosy mist which half obscured the opposite shore, giving it the effect of an irregular group of islands. Above was a calm lake of yellow fire surrounded by heavy billows of boiling gold; beyond, storm clouds, growing larger and darker.
As they drove, a few moments later, to the prison, the great grey battlemented pile was swimming in the same rosy glow. Patience murmured satirically:
“‘The splendour falls on castle walls.’”