"It don't look possible," agreed Billy. "It really don't. I never would have thought it of him. I hope he can prove himself clear of the deed."
"Won't you ask Sophronia to come by to-morrow and go with me?" asked Sally, thoughtfully, "I hate to go alone."
"Yes, to be sure," answered Billy, "I'll ride over to-night an' see her."
On the morrow Sophronia came. Mrs. Brown at once suspected Sally's motives in going to town, and when she put the question point-blank to her daughter, Sally frankly confessed that she was going to see Milton.
"Sally Brown!" cried her mother, with her hands upraised. "The idea of your standin' there, an' tellin' me you air goin' to see that miserable murderer, that's not only cheated you out of a good husband, but out of a lot o' property besides. He ought to be hung, an' you know it!"
"He sent for me, and I'm going," answered Sally, simply.
"Well, go!" cried her mother, wrathfully, "go! an' soon folks will be sayin' that, like as not, you also had a hand in gettin' the Squire put out of the way. It seems a hard thing to say about your own child, but I declare it begins to look like it," added Mrs. Brown, bitterly.
Quick upon the words the girl's eyes flashed forth something of the indignation she felt at their cruel significance, and an angry torrent of denial rose to her lips, and yet it was suddenly stayed by an inner voice that seemed to say—"Who but you has brought it all about?"
She did, indeed, have a hand in it, but not in the way her mother suggested. Sally turned away and made no answer.
When she was brought face to face with the prisoner, the gloom of the place, the grated cell, the dismal air of confinement, burst upon her in startling reality, and forced on her lively imagination the full significance of her lover's peril.