f as her countenance
cleared up; "at home now, thank Heaven! And oh, it is so good to be at
home, and to see my friends once more. And then again, you know--"

Whatever she was going to say was lost in the chaos of her mind. She
sighed wearily enough now, and relapsed into profound reverie.

The doctor took advantage of her abstraction to leave her side, and
beckon to Mr. Berners to follow him to the farthest corner of the cell,
so as to be out of hearing of the two ladies.

"What do you think of her case?" anxiously inquired Sybil's husband, as
soon as he found himself apart with the physician.

"She is deranged of course. Any child could tell you that. But, Mr.
Berners, I called you apart to tell you that myself and my colleagues,
Bright and Wiseman, determined to visit our patient singly, and to make
a separate examination of her. Now, for certain reasons, and among them,
because I am a family practitioner, we all agreed that I should pay her
the first visit. And now, Mr. Berners, I must ask you to go and find out
if there is an experienced matron about the house; and if so, to bring
her here immediately."

Lyon Berners bowed and went out, but soon returned with the warden's
widowed daughter.

"Here is Mrs. Mossop, doctor," he said, introducing the matron.

"How do you do, madam? And now, Mr. Berners, I must further request that
you will take Miss Pendleton out and leave Mrs. Mossop and myself alone
with our patient," said the doctor.

Mr. Berners gave Miss Pendleton his arm and led her from the room.

One of the under-turnkeys locked the door and stood on guard before it.

Mr. Berners and Miss Pendleton walked up and down the corridor in
restless anxiety.

"My brother was here to see me yesterday afternoon, Lyon," she said.

But Mr. Berners, absorbed in anxiety for his wife, scarcely heard the
young lady's words, and certainly did not reply to them.

But Beatrix had something else to say to him, and so she said it:

"Lyon, if you should succeed in getting Sybil's pardon, (pardon for the
crime she never committed!) and should decide to take her to Europe, do
you know what Clement and myself have determined to do?"

"No," said Mr. Berners, with a weary sigh.

"We have decided to go abroad with you and share your fate; whether we
go for a year or two of pleasant travelling and sight-seeing, or whether
we go into perpetual exile."

Lyon Berners, who had been almost rudely indifferent to the young lady