Within the gloomy cell of a French prison Leslie Dane was seated on a low cot-bed, looking out through the narrow, grated window at the blue and sunny sky of France. The young artist looked haggard and wan in the clear light of the pleasant day, for though it was winter the rigors of that season had not yet set in. His dark eyes had a look of suffering and despair in their beautiful depths, and his lips were set in a weary line of pain. It was the day after his incarceration, and he had spent a wretched, sleepless night, almost maddened by the horror of his fearful situation. Suddenly the heavy key turned in the iron door; it swung open to admit a visitor, and then the jailer closed and re-locked it, shutting into the gloomy cell the blonde face of Carl Muller.

"Bon jour," he said, with his debonair smile that seemed to light the gloomy place like a beam of sunshine. "How goes it, mon ami?"

A gleam of pleasure shone faintly over his friend's haggard features.

[Pg 110]

"Is it you, Carl?" he said; "I thought you had deserted me!"

"Ingrate, could you think it?" responded Carl. "I was busy yesterday trying to find out some particulars of this mysterious affair, and they would not admit me last night. I came this morning as soon as they would let me in."

"Thanks Carl; I might have known you were true as steel. And yet there is so much falsity and treachery on earth, how could I be sure of your loyalty? Have you learned anything?"

"Your accuser is the American, Colonel Carlyle," was the startling reply.

"My God!" exclaimed Leslie Dane, with a violent start; and then he added in a passionate tone, and half to himself: "Has he not already wronged me beyond all forgiveness?"

"He seems to have pushed it forward with the greatest malignity," continued Carl. "There are other countrymen of yours here in this city who declare they knew of the foul charge against you, yet they say that the verdict against you was given on purely circumstantial evidence, and that, such being the case, they did not intend to molest you, believing that you might after all be innocent of the crime. But Colonel Carlyle has pushed the affair in a way that seems to indicate a personal spite against you."

Leslie's broad, white brow clouded over gloomily.

"It is true, then, that there is such a charge against me. I fancied there must be some mistake. The whole affair seemed too monstrous for belief, yet you say it is a stern fact. It is so inexplicable to me, for I swear to you, Carl, that up to the very moment of my arrest yesterday I did not know that Francis Arnold was dead."

"And I believe you, Leslie, as firmly as I believe in the purity of my mother away off in my beloved Germany. I know you never could have been guilty of such a foul crime."

"A thousand thanks for your noble confidence, Carl. Now I know that I have at least one true friend on earth. I was rather cynical in such matters before. A sad experience had taught me to distrust everyone," exclaimed Leslie, as he warmly grasped the young German's hand. "But what reason do they assign for my alleged commission of the crime?"

"They told me," said Carl, hesitatingly, "that you were poor and unknown, and aspired to the hand of the millionaire's beautiful and high-born niece. Mr. Arnold, they said, declined your suit for the young lady's hand, and you became enraged and left him, uttering very abusive language coupled with threats of violence. He was murdered while sleeping in his arm-chair that night on his piazza, and it was supposed that you had stealthily returned and wreaked your vengeance upon him."

"My God!" said Leslie Dane, "they have made out a black case against me, indeed. But upon whose circumstantial evidence was my conviction based?"

"Mrs. Arnold, the wife of the murdered man, and his step-daughter, Miss Herbert, heard and witnessed the altercation from their drawing-room windows. Their evidence convicted you, it is said."

[Pg 111]

"My soul!" exclaimed the unhappy prisoner to himself. "Bonnibel was there; she at least knew my innocence, yet she spoke no ............