When she looked at him, his gaze was on her,—not upon the roses. She smiled, for pity's sake; but the smile met no return. His countenance had not the habit of responding to such glances. Sombre as death was that face. Then Elizabeth turned hastily away; but as the keeper also moved on a step, she detained him with a hurried "Wait a minute," and went on plucking the finest flowers in bloom. Like an iron statue stood the prisoner while she plucked the roses,—it was but a minute's work,—then she tied the flowers together and laid them on his fettered hands; whether he would refuse them, whether the gift pained or pleased him, whether the keeper approved, she seemed afraid to know,—for, having given the flowers, she went away in haste.
It was not long after this first act of friendly courtesy, which had many a repetition,—for the keeper was at bottom a humane man, and not disposed to persecute his charge, while he was equally far from any carelessness in guarding or leniency of treatment that would have excited suspicion as to his purpose, in the minds of the authorities of the island,—not long after this day, when the fine sympathy betrayed for him by Elizabeth fell on Manuel's heart like dew, that the wife of the jailer died.
Her death was sudden and unlooked-for, though neither Nature nor the woman could have been blamed for the shock poor Laval experienced. Death had fairly surrounded her, disarming her at every point, so that when he called her there was no resistance.
Jailer Laval took the bereavement in a remorseful mood. The first thing to be done now was the very last he would have owned to purposing during her life-time. Release from that prison had been the woman's prayer, year in and year out, these ten years, and Death was the bearer of the answer to that prayer,—not her husband.
But now, from the day of her sudden decease, the prison had become to him dreary beyond endurance. The mantle of her discontent fell on him, and, having no other confidant beside honest, stupid Sandy, he talked to him like a man who seriously thought of abandoning his labor, and retiring to that land across the sea for which his wife had pined during ten homesick years.
Sandy, who might have regarded himself in the light of an "humble instrument," had he been capable of a particle of vanity or presumption, told Elizabeth Montier, with whom he had held many a conference concerning prison matters, since Manuel first began to walk along the southern garden-walk, where the flower-beds lay against the prison-wall. What was her answer? It came instantly, without premeditation or precaution,—
"Then we must take his place, Sandy."
"We, Miss?" said Sandy, with even greater consternation than surprise.
"Yes," she replied, too much absorbed by what she was thinking, to mind him and his blunders,—"papa must take the prison."
"Oh!"—and Sandy blushed through his tan at his absurd mistake. Then he laughed, for he saw that she had not noticed it. Then he looked grave, and wondering, and doubtful. The idea of Adolphus Montier's pretty wife and pretty daughter changing their pretty home for life in the dark prison startled him. He seemed to think it no less wrong than strange. But he did not express that feeling out and out; he was hindered, as he glanced sideways at the young girl who gazed so solemnly, so loftily, before her. At what she was looking he could not divine. He saw nothing.