The late September afternoon was closing rapidly in when John Dyce helped his mistress to alight from her mare, which had been reined up close to the great, black, bolt-studded gates of Lanchester jail. It was a rare thing for those gates to be opened except for the admission of prisoners, the usual means of entrance and exit being by a postern in the wall no great distance away.

On this door Miss Baynard now proceeded to give three resounding blows with the huge iron knocker. Half a minute later a small wicket was opened, and a hirsute face peered out into the glowing darkness.

"Be good enough to have this note given to Captain Jeffs without a minute\'s delay," said Miss Baynard in her clear, imperious tones. "It is of the utmost importance. I will wait here while you obtain an answer." With that she handed in Sir James\'s note at the wicket, but on the top of it lay a shining guinea.

There was a grunt, and the wicket was shut.

While awaiting an answer, Nell drew from one of her pockets a long diaphanous black veil, which she proceeded to fix round the brim of her hat and to fasten in a knot behind in such a fashion that it came halfway down her face, leaving nothing of it exposed save her upper lip, her mouth, and her chin.

The wait seemed an intolerably long one, and her nerve was beginning to give way a little, when the wicket was opened for the second time, and the same hirsute face made its appearance. "The governor says it\'s beyont the hour for visitors, and that ye should have come earlier; but as ye\'re a friend o\' Sir James Dalrymple\'s he\'ll admit ye. He sends word that he\'s sorry not to come and speak to ye hisself, but he\'s got company at dinner, and can\'t leave th\' table." Such, in the gruffest of tones, was the doorkeeper\'s welcome message.

Then the wicket was closed again, and half a minute later the narrow black door had opened to admit Nell. She slipped in like a shadow, the postern was shut with a clash, and she found herself in a bare, flagged ante-room or entrance-hall, with three or four doors opening out of it, and dimly lighted with a couple of guttering candles. Here was a second man, like the first, in uniform, who carried in one hand a jingling bunch of keys, and to whom the doorkeeper introduced her with the remark, "This is Willyam, mum, who will show ye the way if ye will please to follow him."

"Then perhaps William will oblige me by accepting this trifle," said Miss Baynard; and before the turnkey knew what had happened there was a guinea nestling in his palm.

Then from some mysterious pocket Miss Baynard produced a large, flat bottle containing a quart of the most potent brandy in the Stanbrook cellars. "And here is something to share between you and to drink my health in," she added, as she proffered the bottle for the doorkeeper\'s acceptance, who took it as tenderly as if it had been a month-old baby.

"Eh, mum, but it\'s agen the rules to accept anything o\' this sort," he remarked, with a wag of his head. "We\'ll not engage to drink it. No, no. Rules isn\'t made in order that they may be broke. We\'ll just hide it away where nobody but ourselves can find it, so as not to put temptation in the way of any other poor body." And with that the rascal favored his fellow-officer with a portentous wink.

The latter functionary now lighted a small lantern, and, having unlocked one of the inner doors, he said, "If you will be pleased to follow me, mum."

By this time Nell\'s nerves were worked up to a point of tension that was almost unendurable. She set her teeth hard and clenched her hands as if she intended never to open them again.

Success had attended her so far; would it desert her now? What she had already achieved was as nothing in comparison with that which was still before her. For a few moments it seemed as if the courage which had hitherto sustained her were about to give way.

As she followed the man she had merely a vague impression of a gloomy, flagged, earth-smelling corridor, lighted only by the turnkey\'s lantern; of a heavy iron door which had to be unlocked to allow of their further advance; of another corridor the counterpart of the first, save that on one side of it some half-dozen doors were ranged at intervals. At one of these her conductor came to a halt, and, having selected a key from his bunch, proceeded to unlock it. Then, flinging wide the door, he said in deep, gruff tones which seemed to fill the corridor, "Prisoner, a lady to see you," and with that he moved aside to allow Miss Baynard to enter.

At the words Dare sprang to his feet. He had been reading, stretched at full length on the pallet which served him for a bed by night and a couch by day. A wooden sconce, fixed against the wall, held a solitary candle of the coarsest tallow, which diffused a dim, sickly light through the cell. It was an indulgence his own pocket had to pay for. Had not the volume on which he was engaged been in large print he could not have seen to read it.

At sight of him all Nell\'s failing courage came back to her with a rush, mingled with a great wave of love and compassion. Hardly could she command her voice while she whispered to the turnkey, "Leave us for half-an-hour; don\'t come before."

"All right, mum," whispered the man back.

Then Nell stepped across the threshold of the cell, and the door was locked behind her. Dare, his book fallen unheeded to the floor, stood staring at her with wide-lidded eyes as though she were some visitant from the tomb. Nell responded to his amazement with a strangely-wistful smile, and eyes that no longer strove to hide a secret which, she flattered herself, they had never revealed before. She could not have spoken at that moment to save her life. She felt as if a spell were upon her; everything about her was unreal. Dare himself was not a creature of flesh and blood, but merely a projection of her own imagination. Some sorceress had thrown an enchantment over her which----

"Is it you, Miss Baynard, whom I see? and here, of all places in the universe!"

Dare\'s voice broke the spell that was upon her, and recalled to her, as in a flash, the very real business--the matter of life and death--which had taken her there, and which must be entered on without a minute\'s unnecessary delay.

"Yes, it is I, Mr. Dare," she answered in accents that were slightly tremulous. "You did me and mine a great, nay, an inestimable service; and I am here to see whether I cannot do something for you in return."

A bitter smile lit up his sallow features for a moment. "It is indeed good of you to have put yourself to so much trouble about such a worthless wretch as I. But, were I a hundred-fold more worthy than I am, neither you, Miss Baynard, nor any power on earth (save and except the King\'s clemency, which is altogether out of the question) could do aught to help me out of the coil of trouble which I have brought upon myself."

"Do not be too sure on that point, Mr. Dare. It is the humblest instruments which sometimes avail for the most difficult tasks. We have all read the fable of the lion and the mouse, and cases might arise in which even such an inconsiderable person as I, owing to my very insignificance might be able to do things which would be impossible in any one of greater importance." Her voice was firm enough by now, and her eyes confronted his unwaveringly. She had pushed up her veil till only an edge of it was visible across her forehead at the moment the turnkey had locked the door behind her.

Dare bowed, but looked slightly puzzled. To what was all this the prelude? That she had not come there without having some very special purpose in view he could no longer doubt. But merely to see her face again was to him what the sight of water is to some poor wretch dying of thirst in the desert. To himself he always spoke of her as the Lady of his Dreams.

"Will you not be seated, Miss Baynard?" he now said, as he brought forward a substantial three-legged stool, the only thing, except his pallet, he had to sit on. "My accommodation is of the simplest, as you can see for yourself. That, however, is not my fault, but an oversight (shall we call it?) on the part of my custodians, whose affection for me is so extreme that they cannot bear to part from me."

So Nell sat down on the three-legged stool, while Dare stood a little apart, with folded arms, resting a shoulder against the whitewashed wall of his cell.

Miss Baynard cleared her voice; the crucial moment had come at last.

"I am not here this evening, Mr. Dare, merely to sympathize with you," she resumed, "although that my most heartfelt sympathy is yours needs no assurance on my part, but to put before you a certain definite proposition, which has been carefully thought out in all its details, and the carrying out of which seems to me perfectly feasible. Here, in the fewest words possible--necessarily few because half an hour at the outside must bring my visit to an end--is my proposition. It is simply that you and I shall change places. In half a hour from now you shall quit this cell in the guise of Elinor Baynard, and I shall stay where I am, having, for the nonce, exchanged my personality for that of Mr. Geoffrey Dare."

Dare had sprung to "attention" long before Nell had come to an end. A wave of dark crimson swept across his lean face, leaving it sallower than before. His eyes lighted up with an intense glow. Would any woman, he asked himself, any woman who was young and beautiful, put such a proposition to a man if she did not love him? It was a question he did not wait to answer. He would have time enough to consider it later on.

"Never had an undeserving man a more noble offer made him than you have just made me. But, putting aside the insuperable difficulties in the way of carrying it out, there are other reasons which----"

"There are no insuperable difficulties in the way of carrying it out," broke in Nell. "Every arrangement has been made, as you shall presently hear. But remember this, that we have no time to waste in explanations or idle objections."

Dare bowed as accepting a correction. "Then permit me to say as briefly as may be, Miss Baynard, that it cannot be, that on no account whatever could I, or would I accept such a sacrifice at your hands."

"A sacrifice! Oh, the mockery of the phrase!" Although she spoke aloud, the words seemed addressed to herself rather than to Dare. She had removed her riding gloves, and the long, slender fingers of one hand now gripped those of the other convulsively. Her sharp, white teeth bit into her under-lip and left their mark there. She seemed to be bracing herself for a final effort.

"You are no doubt aware," she resumed, "that ............