“Poor young girl!” she cried; “what can I do to help you?”
Ethel did not hear her. Her thoughts were beyond the mountains of the North, in quest of the daring traveller. Her head sank upon her breast, and her hands were unconsciously clasped.
“Does your father hope to escape from this prison?”
This question, twice repeated by the stranger, brought Ethel to herself.
“Yes,” said she, and tears sparkled on her cheek.
“He does! Tell me how; by what means; when!”
“He hopes to escape from this prison because he hopes ere long to die.”
There is sometimes a power in the very simplicity of a gentle young spirit which outwits the artifices of a heart grown old in wickedness. This thought seemed to occur to the great lady, for her expression suddenly changed, and laying her cold hand on Ethel’s arm, she said in a tone which was almost sincere: “Tell me, have you heard that your father’s life is again threatened by a fresh judicial inquiry? That he is suspected of having stirred up a revolt among the miners of the North?”
The words “revolt” and “inquiry” conveyed no clear idea to Ethel’s mind. She raised her great dark eyes to the stranger’s face as she asked: “What do you mean?”