"How? not strong enough? and I have come all this way to see her! O mother, mother!" she sobbed convulsively, "little you dream your child is near, bringing peace and pardon to your prison!"
Roger saw that Ormiston knew more than he liked to tell, and asked in a low voice:
"The poor lady, then, is very ill?"
"Dying!" the other answered curtly.
"Will her daughter be in time to see her, think you?"
"In time; but that is all. She has burst a blood-vessel, as I have just now learned, and this reprieve seems little better than a mockery; for no one dreams that she could have survived for the tragedy of to-morrow."
"Then let Nellie go at once," said Roger promptly. "She has ridden night and day to see her mother, and sad as the meeting may be, it would be sadder still if they met no more. Let her go at once."
And so it was decided.