esisted this dark temptation to commit a deadly sin.

More frequently still, when his agony seemed greater than he could bear,
he would feel a desperate desire to put a period to his own wretched
existence.

But then came the devoted spirit that whispered for _her_ sake he must
live and suffer, as long as she should have to live and suffer.

All these dark trials and temptations tortured Lyon Berners in those
sleepless, awful nights he spent alone in his desolate home.

But in the morning, when he would go and visit Sybil in the prison, he
not only exerted all his mental powers of self-control, but he called in
the aid of powerful sedative drugs to produce the calmness of manner
with which he wished to meet his wife.

Meanwhile, as the days passed, Sybil sank deeper and deeper into apathy.

Her hallucination was now complete. She imagined that, in company with
her husband and their friends, she had been at church one Sabbath
afternoon, when a tremendous storm of thunder, lightning, rain, and wind
came up, and that they had all been obliged to take refuge in a country
house for the night, and that she herself had been taken ill from the
exposure, and had to remain there until she could get well enough to go
home. As the days passed and the hallucination grew, she lost all count
of time, and always thought that she had arrived "last Sunday," and was
going home "to-morrow!"

Miss Pendleton was permitted to remain with her, and Mr. Berners was
allowed to visit her every day.

So some weeks had passed, when one day a terrible event occurred.

It was early in the morning: the prison doors were just opened for the
admission of visitors, and Lyon Berners had just entered the lower hall,
on his way to the warden's office, to get that old man to conduct him to
Sybil's cell, when he was overtaken and accosted by the sheriff:

"On your way to your wife, Mr. Berners? That is well. She will need you
at this hour," said Mr. Fortescue, after the usual morning greeting.

"What is the matter?" inquired Lyon Berners hurriedly, and in great
alarm.

"For Heaven's sake, compose yourself now! You will need all your
self-possession, for her sake, as well as for your own. Come into the
warden's office with me. He also must go with us to her cell."

In great distress of mind, Mr. Berners followed the sheriff into the
warden's office.

Old Mr. Martin, who was at his desk, came to meet the visitors.

"One moment, Martin. I will se