"Is the stranger a friend of yours?" I asked.

"Oh, no! Having occasion, just now, to go into the waiting-room, I found
a young woman there, who asked me if she could see you. She thinks you
have forgotten her, and she is tired of waiting. I merely undertook, of
course, to mention what she had said to me."

The nurse having been in this way recalled to my memory, I felt some
little interest in seeing her, after what had passed in the cell. In
plainer words, I was desirous of judging for myself whether she deserved
the hostile feeling which the Prisoner had shown toward her. I thanked
the Chaplain before he left me, and gave the servant the necessary
instructions. When she entered the room, I looked at the woman
attentively for the first time.

Youth and a fine complexion, a well-made figure and a natural grace of
movement--these were her personal attractions, so far as I could
see. Her defects were, to my mind, equally noticeable. Under a heavy
forehead, her piercing eyes looked out at persons and things with an
expression which was not to my taste. Her large mouth--another defect,
in my opinion--would have been recommended to mercy, in the estimation
of many men, by her magnificent teeth; white, well-shaped, cruelly
regular. Believers in physiognomy might perhaps have seen the betrayal
of an obstinate nature in the lengthy firmness of her chin. While I am
trying to describe her, let me not forget her dress. A woman's dress
is the mirror in which we may see the reflection of a woman's nature.
Bearing in mind the melancholy and impressive circumstances under which
she had brought the child to the prison, the gayety of color in her gown
and her bonnet implied either a total want of feeling, or a total want
of tact. As to her position in life, let me confess that I felt, after
a closer examination, at a loss to determine it. She was certainly not
a lady. The Prisoner had spoken of her as if she was a domestic servant
who had forfeited her right to consideration and respect. And she had
entered the prison, as a nurse might have entered it, in charge of a
child. I did what we all do when we are not clever enough to find the
answer to a riddle--I gave it up.

"What can I do for you?" I asked.

"Perhaps you can tell me," she answered, "how much longer I am to be
kept waiting in this prison."

"The decision," I reminded her, "doesn't depend on me."

"Then who does it depend on?"

The Minister had undoubtedly acquir