once into
a deep and dreamy state of abstraction.

Miss Pendleton beckoned Mr. Berners to come to her at one of the
windows.

"What is it?" inquired Lyon, anxiously.

"She came very near a consciousness of her position just now, when she
first recognized her property, but the peril passed away. And now we
must be very careful to foster this merciful insanity that shields her
from misery. And as one precaution, I wish you would ask the warden to
oil these rusty bolts and bars, and make them work noiselessly. She has
never noticed that she is locked and bolted in, and I wish her never to
notice it, or to suspect it."

"Thanks, a thousand thanks, dear Beatrix! I will follow your
suggestions," said Mr. Berners, warmly grasping her hand.

Then the warden turned to the visitor, and told him that the hour had
come for locking up the prison for the night.

Mr. Berners went back to his wife and took an affectionate leave of her.

She let him go, with even less of opposition than on the preceding
evening, for it seemed as if her fitful rise towards sensibility had
reacted in a deeper fall into apathy.

Lyon Berners returned to his desolate home. Among all who were affected
by the condemnation of Sybil Berners, there was none who suffered such
agony of mind as that which nearly drove her husband to frenzy. If
Sybil's terrible trials and unspeakable sorrows had resulted in a mild
and merciful insanity, that vailed her mind from any knowledge of the
deep horrors of her position, Lyon's utter anguish of spirit had stung
him to a state of desperation that incited the wildest schemes and the
most violent remedies.

As he lay tossing in his sleepless bed each night, he felt tempted to go
and seek out that band of outlaws, and to bribe them to the half of his
fortune to make a night attack upon the prison, and forcibly rescue his
beloved wife.

There was, however, a serious objection to this plan; for besides its
unlawfulness and its uncertainty of success, it was impracticable, from
the fact that no one--not even the most experienced thief-catchers--had
been able to find the lost clue to the retreat of the robbers. Since
their flight from the ruined house, four months previous, they had never
been heard of.

Sometimes, as Sybil's husband lay groaning in anguish on his pillow, he
was strongly tempted to procure some drug that would give her a quick
and easy death, and save her from the horrors to come.

But Lyon Berners r