“I am very distressed, sir—very distressed indeed, but there’s still time—while there’s life there’s hope! Could you manage to come round here again to-night, sir—say at nine o’clock?”
“Here! What for?” asked Austin bluntly.
“I can’t explain, sir. I don’t quite know yet, but if you would come—ask for Sir Robert—I think there might be someone here—there might be a chance. Better not say anything to the poor lady, but perhaps you would give her my best respects, and try to cheer her up generally. Tell her not to despair.”
“I’ll come. And you’re a good chap, Thomson,” Austin said earnestly, though his own hopes were dead. He would have shaken hands with the little man, but Thomson evaded the proffered grasp and slipped back into the house.
Grace asked no question, but sat upright in her corner, with that strange, unnatural composure still possessing her.
They were on their way to the prison for their last interview with Roger, whose execution was fixed for eight o’clock on the following morning, and Austin, who had fought valiantly in the American Army in that last year of the Great War, had there seen death in many dreadful forms—the death of comrades whom he loved—dreaded this interview as he had never dreaded anything in his life before. Possibly for the first time in his life he felt an arrant coward, and when the moment came he was speechless. He just wrung Roger’s hands, bent and kissed them, and hastily retreated, quite unconscious of the fact that the tears were rolling down his face.
It was quite otherwise with Grace. She spoke gently, with a gracious smile to the watchful warders, whose guard over the prisoner must now be ceaseless till the end, and then clung to Roger, raising her lips to his, her great, grey eyes shining, not with tears.
“It’s not good-bye, darling,” she said softly. “It’s only till to-morrow—such a little time—perhaps even sooner—to-night, at the ninth hour—and we shall be at home together—at last. The light is coming—the great protection is over us!”
He thought, as Austin did, that for the time being at least she had become insane. It was better so, for her sake; but, oh, it was hard! He had to summon all his fortitude. The iron will that had sustained him through all these terrible weeks must sustain him to the last.