list and in your country, which I enter as a stranger, I am Muriel Worthington, betrothed to a man now awaiting execution in the death cell of one of your big prisons, but that letter will tell you that I am Muriel Worthington Dean, niece of your colleague, Sir Jeffrey, and it is as his niece I claim your friendship. I know what I have to do. My plans are made. I can carry them out without asking anyone's aid. Still, I must confess it will be a comfort and strength to feel that I can turn to you should some unforeseen perplexity arise."

To say the Doctor was amazed would be putting it mildly. Had a sea serpent arisen from the deep and greeted him, it would have been a mere incident compared to the revelation that unravelled his mystery. Here beside him, in the charming companion of an ocean passage, he found the niece of an honoured and admired confrère, who in the same breath had told him that she was the betrothed of a murderer awaiting death. Muriel, who had known and realised all this for many days, could hardly understand the utter bewilderment and shock such an announcement would prove to another and unprepared mind. As she watched the Doctor's face and felt the silence of his consternation, she became

acutely aware of the strangeness of her position and hastened to give him a fuller confidence. As she told the story to Sir Jeffrey, so she told it now to Dr. Strowbridge. They leaned over the ship's side gazing into the night. Beneath them the calm sea and above them the starry sky; around them cool breezes and soothing sounds and a quiet that seemed to make their companionship more intimate.

The story was the same and fell with simple earnestness from the girl's lips, but Gerald Strowbridge was not made in the same mould as his celebrated colleague. He was of a sterner character, chivalrous to women, a courtier to her queenship, but he was apt to be hard and harsh in his judgment of men, especially of those who had shown weakness. He had no means of knowing Jack's innocence, no reason for accepting and sharing Muriel's perfect confidence in her lover. He resented a tie that bound this lovely, golden-haired girl to a condemned murderer. She was so palpably made for life and joy and love that it seemed like catching and crushing a butterfly to think of her in any connection with prison, crime, and a shameful death. He felt his indignation against the man rising. Guilty or innocent, who was he to drag a girl into so strange a position?

To Muriel it was somewhat of a shock to find that his sympathy with her lover was very guardedly expressed but that his concern for her was very genuine. He did not think she should hold her engagement as binding under such circumstances, and any manly man, he argued, in his own mind, would instantly release her. He told her plainly that he considered it unwise for her to go at once to the prison. Let her see the lawyers and learn if she could be of any use before taking such a step. He was sure she did not realise the vulgar publicity the press would give her arrival if it became known, or the unpleasant notoriety that was before her, in any case. He would gladly see her to her hotel, consult his lawyer friends, give her a letter to the Governor, whom he knew personally, and introduce her to ladies among his friends, who could chaperon her, but he entreated her to keep in the background and let the man fight out his own battle to the end. A dark struggle of that sort was not for a woman to face.

Muriel took fire at this and showed considerable indignation and independence. Doctor Strowbridge was made to feel it was none of his business. She would arrange her own affairs and turn to him only if he was needed.

Furthermore, anyone who was her friend must believe in Jack's innocence; so she retired from their last interview on board with a somewhat lower opinion of her new adviser and a decided bracing of her own spirit for what lay before her. Masculine opposition generally has that effect on any woman of strong character. Gerald Strowbridge, on his part, walked the deck most of the night, sometimes calling himself a fool and at others a brute, but for all that holding tenaciously to his own opinion.

They parted cordially at the dock, despite their difference of opinion, and when she had been whirled away out of his life, the Doctor felt an unaccountable emptiness and dulness that made even the return to his own country lack something of its joy and colour, whereupon he called himself a fool again and made all speed to those paths where duty and responsibility would once more chain him down to a busy life of service for others.

CHAPTER IX

THE

HE iron door of the death-house had opened and shut again behind her. Mechanically Muriel had walked down the corridor, past the double row of punishment cells, and had found herself out in the prison yard again. What an overwhelmingly sad experience had been this first interview with her dear, splendid Jack, now a poor, wan-looking prisoner in that horrible place! For several moments she stood looking up at the clear blue vault of heaven. A flock of pigeons flew across her vision, free and joyous of wing; sunshine fell on the grass and on a bed of dark red geraniums, that made a vivid dash of colour in the grey walled enclosure. Her eyes saw all this, but her mind was held in a dull torpor. The chaplain laid his hand gently on her arm and led her towards the great cell house through which she must pass to gain the outer world. More iron doors were opened and shut. She had a