He paused. The sea outside was singing on the shore; the children were laughing at their play.
"Fenella, at this last moment I must tell you something. Ever since I came to care for you, it has been the dearest wish of my heart that, God helping me, I should make your life a happy one—that, whatever happened to me, in a world so full of cloud and shadow, you should live in the sunshine. And now that you follow me here, to this prison, this tomb .... it is too much. I cannot bear it.
"Go home, dear. Good-bye and God bless you! Don't let me regret the impulse that brought me here. If it was right and true I must bear my punishment alone. Leave me the comfort of thinking that at least your outer life goes on as if I had never shattered it. We have had many happy hours together, but they are over. Life is for ever closed against me. You can do nothing for me now. It was sweet and good of you to come to this place, and I feel as if I could give my heart's blood for one more look into your dear face, but...."
He had written thus far when the key rattled in the lock of his cell. The door opened and there was a flash of the jailer's lantern. Instinctively, without looking up, Stowell covered his letter in his blotting-paper and busied himself with both for a moment. When he raised his eyes the lantern was on the table, but the jailer was gone and somebody else was standing before him.
It was Fenella. She was in wedding dress, with the veil thrown back, looking more lovely than in the most delirious of his dreams. At first he thought it was a phantom, born of the preoccupation of his tortured brain, and in a hushed whisper, trembling all over and rising from his chair, he said,
"Fenella!"
She, too, was trembling, but she put on a brave air and even a little of her gay raillery.
"Yes, it is Fenella. She has come, as she said she would, you know."
"But why have you come?"
"Why? Don't you know what day this is, Victor? This was to have been our wedding-day. It shall be, too."