"Christie!" he cried out in alarm.
"I mean that my days are numbered; and, Willard, I am happy. I only wish for life long enough to save Sibyl."
Something in her tone checked the words he was going to say, and both relapsed into silence, broken at last by her saying:
"Tell me all that has happened to you and to my friends, since that night."
And then he began, and related all; his father's death; the shock he received on hearing of her murder; of his departure for Europe with the Campbells; of their return and their marriage. At this point he could feel a slight shudder run through the frame of Christie; but when he spoke of the unlooked-for interruption, and of Sibyl's being carried off to prison, and of her condemnation, she trembled so convulsively that he was forced to stop.
"Oh, poor Sibyl!" she said, passionately. "Oh, Willard! her fate was far worse than mine. What is suffering of any kind compared with the shame—the overwhelming disgrace—of that trial, exposed to the merciless eyes of the hundreds? And that I should, in any way, be the cause! Oh, Willard! it is dreadful!"
She wept, so violently that he was alarmed.
"My own dear Christie, be calm," he said, soothingly. "Consider that you are now going to save her life."
Still she wept on, until her overcharged heart was relieved; and then, worn out in mind and body, she fell fast asleep on his shoulder.
Early in the afternoon they reached N——, which they found crowded with strangers on their way to Westport.