Ah, how Gabrielle longed for some clue to that
dark mystery, some proof to show to those who
trusted her that their faith might be put to the
test no longer.

With this lady Gabrielle could talk of the old
times, talk of her father, with whom she had
always been so great a favourite, and—more
painful subject—of her mother, who had not
forgiven her for marrying contrary to her will.
There appeared reason to believe that this last
estrangement was, however, at an end. The
news of the awful situation in which her daughter
was placed had, it seemed, reached her mother's
heart, for the telegraphic despatch which Gilbert
had sent off, acquainting Gabrielle's parents with
her present danger, had been just answered by
another, in which it was stated that both her
father and mother were coming over to England
as fast as steam could bring them.

And with this old friend the imprisoned girl
—for she was nothing more—could talk, at
length, of the scenes among which she had lived
her earliest life. They talked of the house where
her childhood had been passed, they went in
imagination from room to room, and sat again
over their books in the verandah shade. The
garden, with its foliage and flowers, so rich and
luxuriant, so different from a garden in Europe,
rose up before them, and the shady nook which
had been Gabrielle's especially, where she had
planted what she chose and watched the growth.
of her favourite flowers. And then they would
stretch forth beyond the house limits, and in the
cool of the evening, or perhaps in the early
morning, before the sun was dangerous, would
wander along by the sea-shore, or through the
woods, where the verdure was on so wonderful
a scale, and where the strange birds, that are
caged as curiosities here, and made much of,
sung almost unheeded.

And they would talk of Gilbert too. As a
little boy he had learnt his first lessons of this
worthy lady, before the tutor came to teach the
boys. They talked of his quickness and cleverness,
and how he and Gabrielle had always been
such friends and comrades, and how they had
seemed to be intended for each other from the
very first. And then, oh, then, some cruel
reality would dissipate in a moment these visions
of the past, in which they had been so absorbed,
that the present was forgotten. Some incident
of jail-life would recal them in a moment to a
consciousness of the real state of things—thrust
it before them in all its horror, and the old lady
would remember that this, her dear little pupil,
was shut up in the prison of Newgate, accused of
a capital offence, and awaiting her trial, and the
pupil herself would think of this too at the same
moment, and bitter tears would fill the eyes of
both.

But there were times when no visitors were
admitted. Long seasons of utter inaction, when
weary thoughts, and thoughts that were even
terrible, were by no means to be evaded. The
days were short at this time, and the period of
time during which darkness covered the earth
was terribly, and, as it seemed, disproportionately
long. The evenings, too, were endless, and
though Gabrielle was allowed to have a light, and
to read, it yet appeared as if the time would never
pass. There is something depressing to the
animal spirits in reading over-long; and besides,
our unhappy prisoner could not always fix her
attention upon what she read. The awful life of
suspense which she was leading made her at
times restless and incapable of fixing herself to
any occupation.

And then the nights. Was there any end to
these? To Gabrielle they appeared to be interminable.
Her sleep was fitful, a sort of wretched
unrefreshing doze, and even this continually
interrupted, and every such snatch of repose followed
by a long period of wakefulness. Her cell was
dimly lighted, and many were the dreary hours
which she passed gazing at the uninteresting
objects and forms which the obscure light
revealed, and with which she was already familiar
even to disgust. She formed the shadows on the
wall into spectres. The active imagination
turned all sorts of well-known objects into shapes
which frightened her, and yet she must needs
look on. The quietness appalled her. The
interior of the jail was as still at night as
the very grave itself, and she longed with a
longing that cannot be told for the morning
noises and the morning light. It was a weary
time.

And what sleep she got was it not troubled
with terrible and unhallowed dreams? Dreams
more or less tinctured with the disquietude of
her waking thoughts. Sometimes she dreamed
of days not long gone by. Happy days they
were, though they had hardly appeared so at the
time. They had been—she and her husband—
so straitened lately as to means, that they had
got to dwell on the subject of poverty too
exclusively, and to think it almost the only evil that
existed. The poverty never reappeared in her
dreams, but only the happiness of those days,
when she and Gilbert were, at least, together.
Poverty! What was a poverty, that they both
shared, to this?

One night her dreams, abandoning the past,
stretched on to what was to come. It was at a
time the most critical that could well be
conceived that she thus dreamed, for on the very
next day her trial was to begin. All day long
that one thought had been before her. She had
had only a short interview with Gilbert, but
every moment of it had been occupied with talk
about the trial, and what he intended to do
with the defence. He had appeared very
sanguine to her, though secretly, in his inmost
heart, he was at that time but ill at ease. Again,
she had been visited by her old governess, and
then the talk had still been about the coming
trial. Gabrielle had thought of it incessantly
as she lay wakeful in her bed, and when at last
she fell into a sort of uneasy slumber, it influenced
even her sleeping thoughts. It was the
trial, which lay before her, and which occupied
her mind so continually during her waking
hours, that came to trouble her now.

It was a very different thing, though, to