ather's Beryl? O, righteous God! Where is Thy
justice? O, Christ! Is Thy mercy a mockery?"

She stood, with her chin resting on her clenched hands, and twice a
long violent shudder shook her from head to foot.

"I hope your imprisonment will be only temporary. The Grand Jury will
be in session next week. Meantime diligent search may discover the
persons whose conversation you overheard at the station; and if you be
innocent, we are all your friends, and the law, which now seems so
stern, will prove your strongest protector and vindicator."

Judge Dent stood close beside her, as he essayed these words of
comfort, and saw that she caught her breath as though in mortal agony.
Her face writhed, and she shut her eyes, unable to contemplate some
hideous apparition. He suspected that she was fighting desperately an
impulse that suggested succor; and he was sure she had strangled it,
when her hands fell nerveless at her side, and she raised her bowed
head. If the finger of paralysis had passed over her features, they
would not have appeared more hopelessly fixed. Mechanically she twisted
and coiled her hair, and took the hat and shawl which the officer held
out to her.

"If I can assist you in any way, you have only to send for me."

She looked at Judge Dent intently, for an instant, then shook her head.

"No one can help me now."

She tied her veil over her face, and silently followed the deputy
sheriff to a carriage, that stood near the pavement.

When he would have assisted her, she haughtily repelled him.

"I will follow you, because I must; but do not put your hands on me."

CHAPTER VII.

In ante bellum days, when States' Rights was a sacred faith, a revered
and precious palladium, State pride blossomed under Southern skies, and
State coffers overflowed with the abundance wherewith God blessed the
land. During that period, when it became necessary to select a site for
a new Penitentiary, the salubrity and central location of X---had so
strongly commended it, that the spacious structure was erected within
its limits, and regarded as an architectural triumph of which the State
might justly boast. Soon after this had been completed, the old county
jail, situated on the border of the town, was burned one windy March
night; then the red rain of war deluged the land, and when the ghastly
sun of "Reconstruction" smiled upon the grave of States' Rights,
Municipal money disappeared in subterranean channels. Thus