own," said Flossy calmly, "and listen to me. I have an odd story
to tell you. The man of whom we speak managed to do what scarcely
another convict has done in recent times--he escaped. He nearly killed
the warder in his flight, but not quite--so that counts for nothing. It
is rumored that he reached America, where he is living contentedly in
the backwoods. I can show you the newspaper account of his escape. I
thought," she added a little cynically, "that it might relieve your mind
to hear of it; but it does not seem to do so. I fancied that you would
be glad. Would you rather that he were dead?"

"No, no; Heaven knows that I rejoice in his escape!" cried her brother,
sitting down again with his forehead bowed upon his clasped hands and
his elbows on his knees. "I have blood-guiltiness enough already upon my
soul. Glad? I am so glad, Florence, that I can almost dare to thank God
that Westwood is alive and has escaped. I--I shall never escape!"

CHAPTER XXI.

Enid had the look of a veritable snow-queen thought Hubert, as he came
upon her a day or two later in a little _salon_ opening out of the
drawing-room, and found her gazing out upon a landscape of which all the
lines were blurred in falling snow. She was dressed in a white woollen
gown, which was confined at her waist by a simple white ribbon, and had
white fur at the throat and wrists.

The dead-white suited her delicate complexion and golden hair; she had
the soft and stainless look of a newly fallen snowflake, which to touch
were to destroy. Hubert almost felt as if he ought not to speak to one
so far removed from him--one set so high above him by her innocence and
purity. And yet he was bound to speak.

"You like the snow?" he began.

"Yes--as much as I like anything."

"At your age," said Hubert slowly, "you should like everything."

"You think I am so very young!"

"Well--seventeen."

"Oh, but I don't feel young at all!" the girl said half wearily, half
bitterly. "I seem to have lived centuries! You know, cousin Hubert,
there are very few girls of my age who have had all the trouble that I
have had."

"You have had a great deal--you have been the victim of a tragedy," said
Hubert gloomily, not able to deny the truth of her remark, even while he
was forced to remember that many other girls of Enid's age had far more
real and tangible sorrows than she. The vision of a girl pleading with
him to find her work flashed suddenly across his mind; h