"Oh, but you are not past help. And that is what the Governor bade me say, that it is not too late; that he knows Father Mohl pricked you past endurance, and that he will move heaven and earth to get you off if you will but confess, so that no innocent man may suffer."
Neville bowed with ironical courtesy.
"You will give me an answer to take to him?"
"I have given Governor Brent my answer once."
"Oh, think! Do not send me away hastily. Think what is before you,—the chains, the prison, the—the scaffold."
Neville smiled.
"Have you no feeling? How can you smile?"
"Was I smiling? I suppose I was following your words and picturing the scenes you called up, especially the last. I was thinking about the fellows who would make the noose fast and swing me off, fancying, poor fools, that they had killed me. How little they would know that the death came off weeks before, and was dealt by one glance from a pair of purple-gray eyes that said in yonder court-room, 'I count you guilty.'"
"Stay not to bandy phrases!" interrupted Elinor, swaying a little unsteadily on her feet. "Talk no more of guilt or innocence; but let us look about for another plan of escape since you will not trust Giles Brent. Look, I am near as tall as you. I measured height the evening you stood by me at the fire. You have fair hair, too, like mine. Let us change attire, and you in my cloak shall slip out yonder door."
"And you?"