high spirits, and I'm to help the breaking."

"But I thank you just the same," I answered him; "and I promise to give
you as little trouble as may be while you are my jailer--which, with all
my heart, I hope may be as long as I'm a prisoner."

He waved out his hands to the dungeon walls, and lifted his shoulders
as if to say that I might as well be docile, for the prison was safe
enough. "Poom!" said he, as if in genial disdain of my suggestion.

I smiled, and then, after putting my hands on the walls here and there
to see if they were, as they seemed, quite dry, I drew back to my couch
and sat down. Presently I stooped to tip the earthen jar of water to my
lips, for I could not lift it with one hand, but my humane jailer took
it from me and held it to my mouth. When I had drunk, "Do you know,"
asked I as calmly as I could, "if our barber gave the letter to
Mademoiselle?"

"M'sieu', you've travelled far to reach that question," said he,
jangling his keys as if he enjoyed it. "And if he had--?"

I caught at his vague suggestion, and my heart leaped.

"A reply," said I, "a message or a letter," though I had not dared to
let myself even think of that.

He whipped a tiny packet from his coat. "'Tis a sparrow's pecking--no
great matter here, eh?"--he weighed it up and down on his fingers--"a
little piping wren's par pitie."

I reached out for it. "I should read it," said he. "There must be no
more of this. But new orders came AFTER I'd got her dainty a m'sieu'!
Yes, I must read it," said he--"but maybe not at first," he added, "not
at first, if you'll give word of honour not to tear it."

"On my sacred honour," said I, reaching out still.

He looked it all over again provokingly, and then lifted it to his nose,
for it had a delicate perfume. Then he gave a little grunt of wonder and
pleasure, and handed it over.

I broke the seal, and my eyes ran swiftly through the lines, traced in a
firm, delicate hand. I could see through it all the fine, sound nature,
by its healthy simplicity mastering anxiety, care, and fear.

"Robert," she wrote, "by God's help my brother will live, to repent with
you, I trust, of Friday night's ill work. He was near gone, yet we have
held him back from that rough-rider, Death.

"You will thank God, will you not, that my brother did not die? Indeed,
I feel you have. I do not blame you; I know--I need not tell you
how--the heart of the affair; and even my mother can see through the
wre