k I must be dreaming," stammered Maxime, all his bitterness
forgotten. "I've been ill. I don't understand things as quickly as I
used. Escape! You have come here to--help me to escape. Yes, it is
certainly a dream. I shall wake up by and by!"

"You will wake up free," said Virginia not daring to raise her voice
above a low monotone. "Free, on our yacht, that has brought us from
France to take you home."

Suddenly a glaze of tears overspread Maxime Dalahaide's dark eyes.
"Home?" he echoed wistfully. "Home! Ah, if it might be!"

"It shall be," returned Virginia. "George, tell him our plan. You can do
it better than I."

"The thing is to get you on board the yacht," said Trent. "After that,
you're all right. We can show our heels to pretty well anything in these
parts."

Dalahaide shook his head. "There are no words to thank you for what you
have done, and would do for me," he answered. "But it is impossible. Once
I thought of escape. I tried and failed, as others have tried and failed.
After the second time, they put me in the Black Cell, and I saved myself
from madness by calling to memory all of Shakespeare that I had ever
learned. I don't say 'impossible' because I am afraid of that again. I
have passed beyond fear of anything. What have I left to dread? I know
the worst; I have lived through the worst that can befall a man. But in
that dreadful blackness, where my very soul seemed to dissolve in night,
I realized that, even if I could escape, how useless freedom would be if
my innocence were not proved. I could not go to France or England. I
should live a hunted life. As well be an exile here as nearer
home--better, perhaps, now that the first bitterness has passed."

"You think this because you've been ill, and your blood runs slow," said
George Trent. "All you need is to be strong again, and----"

"Strong again!" echoed Maxime, with sorrowful contempt. "I've been
thanking heaven that I hadn't strength enough left to care for anything.
It's true, as you say; the oil in my lamp of life burns low, and so much
the better for me. What I want now is to get it all over as soon as may
be. You are kind--you are so good to me that I am lost in wonder; yet
even you cannot give me a freedom worth having. Take back my love to my
sister, but tell her--tell her that I am content to stay as I am."

"Content to die, you mean!" cried Virginia.

"Oh, you are ill indeed to feel like this. How can you bear to stay here,
when y