sighed. She looked at Adolphus;--a
pang shot through her heart; the shadow of the man seemed to overshadow
him. Out of this place, where all appeared to be fast changing into
"goblins damned"!

It was she who led the way; but, pausing in the court-yard, Elizabeth
evinced still greater haste to be gone, for she ran on with fleet step,
and a heart heavy with foreboding as to the result of this interview.
She was also impatient to get into the open sunlight, and did not rest
in this progress she was making outward till she had come to the
sea-shore. Elizabeth Montier was in a state of dire perplexity just
then, and if she had been asked whether she would really choose to
effect the change proposed in their way of living, it would have been
no easy matter for her to discover her mind.

By the sea-shore she sat down, and her father and mother followed
slowly on. They were not talking as they came. But as they approached
the beach, Adolphus could not resist the prospect before them. Loud was
the blast he blew upon his horn, nor did he cease playing until his
music had restored him to a more natural mood than that in which the
interview with Laval left him. The prison was becoming a less startling
image of desolate dreariness to him. And Adolphus was the master-spirit
in his family. If he was gay, it was barely possible for his wife and
child to be sad. Of the prison not one word was spoken by either. They
had not revealed to each other their inmost mind when they went into
Laval's quarters; they did not reveal it when they came thence. But as
they strolled along the rocky shore, or returned homeward, they thought
of little beside the prison and the prisoner. As to Elizabeth, nothing
required of her that she should urge the matter further. She had
neither heart nor courage for such urging.

It was Adolphus himself who spoke to Pauline the next day, after he had
deliberately thrown himself in the way of the prisoner, that he might
with his own eyes see what manner of man he was; for seeing was
believing.

"Pauline," said he, almost persuaded of the truth of his own words,
"you and Elizabeth would make a different place of that prison from
what it is now. I should like to see it tried."

Pauline Montier made no haste to answer; she was afraid that she knew
what he expected of her.

"Do you see," continued Adolphus, "Elizabeth won't speak of it again?
But what must she think of us? He is a man. They say we are all
brothe