One more day and night of life. And now I began violently to long for her; to feel the bitter injustice of dying here in this place without seeing her. With one moment I would pray earnestly that she might not arrive in time; in the next would be faint with longing to hold her hands and hear her voice. It is safe to say that I never lost sight of that girlish figure; I thought of nothing else. The voice of the good chaplain went by me like a thing unheard; if I listened at all, it was to hear him saying over and over again: "Barbara!"—"Barbara!"—"Barbara!"—over and over again as in a sort of chant.
It was growing late in the afternoon, and I was seated on the side of my bed, with my face buried in my hands, thinking. Even then I did not think of the near approach of death; I only longed insanely, now that my hour was coming, to live a little longer, that I might see her. I must have fallen into a sort of stupor; for I know it seemed to me the prison wall was down again, and that once again I had stepped out into the blessed sunlight of the free woods; when I felt a hand laid on my shoulder, and, looking up, saw one of the officials. He said something to me that I did not understand, and I got dazedly to my feet; looking past him, I saw Barbara, with her hands stretched out to me. And she was all in black.
At first I remember that I laughed, and looked stupidly from one to the other of the men about me. Then, at a sign from the man who had spoken, they fell back, and went to the further end of the cell. And I was quite suddenly in her arms.
The beautiful thing about it all was that she was so brave and so strong—braver and stronger than I was. I remember that she comforted me as she might have comforted a child—called me, again and again, her dear, dear boy; whispered again and again that they should not kill me. I was content just to hold her, and to listen to her voice; I thought of nothing else, save of the hopelessness of it all; for I felt that I was wiser than she was, and that I knew the thing to be inevitable. I don't know what power she had exercised, or in what strenuous fashion she had set to work to gain this last interview with me; I only remember with gratitude that they left us alone, and that we sat side by side on the low bed, and talked in whispers. We were both so young that perhaps they relaxed the rules a little, and felt that it did not matter.
"I was far away—abroad—and I had no news," she began.
"Yes, I know," I replied. "And you travelled night and day since then to reach me."
"How did you know that?" she demanded quickly. And then I told her of the dreams I had had, and how I had met her in the wood, and how I had known from her own lips that she was coming to me.
She looked at me strangely, passing one hand over her forehead, as though by that mechanical action to clear her mind. "That is very wonderful, Charlie," she said, when I had told her the words she had used. "I said to myself, over and over again, while the slow trains crawled across the countries, and the slow ship ploughed across the sea—I said again and again those words to myself: 'I will reach you—God willing—before they kill you!' That is very wonderful."
"Nothing is wonderful with us," I replied, with a quick laugh that made the men turn and look at me curiously.
"When I heard what had happened, I scarcely knew at first what to do; and then I knew that I must come back—that I must see you, even if everything else proved hopeless. Lucas would have stopped me; he said it was no affair of mine, and that I must not—should not mix myself up in it. So I got away at night, and came straight to you; it was the least that I could do. Now you are to tell me everything that has happened—everything!"