an apprehension that was grievous, Adolphus stood the image of dismay.
Those three, so entirely one, seemed to have been thrust apart by a
resistless evil Fate who had some malignant purpose to serve.

Not now for the first time did Pauline see that the young face
before her was pale, and grave with a gravity once unknown to it. It
might be, that, for the first time, she was asking herself outright
if this prison-life was to serve Elizabeth as it had served the wife
of Laval,--but not for the first time was she now visited by a
foreboding that pointed to this fear.

"It is the prison," said she.

"Elizabeth, is it so? Is this house going to be the death of you?"
asked Montier, abruptly,--referring the point with stern authority,
to the last person who would be likely to acknowledge the danger of
which he spoke.

"If you think _so_, papa and mamma, I must give up the voyage, just
to prove that you are mistaken," answered she.

"Look at her, Adolphus!" said Pauline; "remember what she was a year
ago! She's not the same now. I can see it. Strange if I could not!
Young people are different from old. I thought this place would
never seem like home to me, but I found out my mistake."

"I knew you would," said Adolphus, quickly.

"Of course it is the place for me, on the prisoner's account. I hate
the prison just the same, though. But if I was mistaken, so was
Elizabeth. She thought it would seem like home to her;--it never has;
it never will. But I do not think there is a chance of our being
kept here long by poor Mr. Manuel. Adolphus, I am for Elizabeth's
going home."

"Colonel Farel and his lady are getting ready to go in the next
vessel," said Adolphus, as if in a sleep, or as though his power of
speech opposed and defied him in its activity,--so bewildered did he
look at his wife and daughter.

"Oh, then, may I go? It is only out and back. I will not be long away.
Then we shall all go some day together, and never, never return."

"That is my wish," said Pauline; "isn't it yours, Adolphus?"

"Yes!" And this answer was given by a man who was neither asleep nor
bewildered, but by one who had put himself out of sight, and was
thinking only of others.

Adolphus had not been as blind as Pauline must have supposed him when
she bade him remember what their daughter was a year ago. He, too,
had seen that the bloom was fading from her face, and by many a
device he had striven to divert the gravity, descending upon h