Soon after sunrise on the morrow she was beating at the gates of Middelburg gaol, a paper clutched convulsively in her left hand.
She was admitted, and to the head gaoler she showed the paper that she carried.
“An order from the Governor of Zeeland for the gaol delivery of Philip Danvelt!” she announced almost hysterically.
The gaoler scanned the paper, then her face. His lips tightened.
“Come this way,” he said; and led her down a gloomy corridor to the cell where yesterday she had seen her husband.
He threw wide the door, and Sapphira sprang in.
“Philip!” she cried, and checked as suddenly.
He lay supine and still upon the miserable pallet, his hands folded upon his breast, his face waxen, his eyes staring glassily through half-closed lids.
She sped to his side in a sudden chill of terror. She fell on her knees and touched him.
“Dead!” she screamed, and, kneeling, span round questioning to face the gaoler in the doorway. “Dead!”