As Abbie uttered this simple confession of country faith, the pitiful man lifted up his eyes from the tiled floor and looked at her gratefully. His dry lips moved, and he tried to speak.
"Yes," was all he said, with fierce humility. Then the lack of breath choked him.
"She made me promise not to give you up, and to come and see you. Of course you are innocent, Ikey?" Abbie did not look at him.
"Yes," he answered mechanically.
"I know," she said softly.
Of what use were more words? They would only beat like waves against the granite of his broken heart. The two sat silent for a time. Then Abbie said, "I must go." She edged a little towards him, and touched his coat.
"When will you come out? I will explain it all to the minister and the neighbors. We will be married as soon as you come home. She wanted us to! Oh, Ikey! Oh, Ikey! My poor—poor boy!"
Isaac arose unsteadily. It was time for her to go, for the turnkey had nodded to him.
A fierce, mad indignation at his fate and what it had wrought upon his mother and upon his honorable name blinded him. He did not even say good-by, but left the girl standing in the middle of the guard-room alone. At any cost he must get back to his cell. Supposing his mind should give way before he got there? He staggered to the stairway. He threw his hands up, and groped on the railing. A blindness struck him before he had mounted two steps. He did not hear a woman's shriek, nor the rushing of feet, nor the sound of his own fall.
When he awaked, he was alone in the witness cell; and when he put his white hands to his hair, he felt that his head was shaven. The chipper prison doctor told him that he was getting nicely over a brain fever.