CHAPTER XXXII.
SYBILLA'S TRIUMPH.
It was the night before the execution.

In his feebly lighted cell the condemned man sat alone, trying to read by the palely glimmering lamp.
The New Testament lay open before him, and on this, the last night of his life, he was reading the story of Gethsemane and Calvary.

On this last night heart and soul were at rest, and an infinite calm illumined every feature.
Weeks had passed since the day when sentence of death had been pronounced upon him, and the condemned man had lain burning in the wild delirium of brain fever.
Sybilla Silver had been his most sleepless, his most devoted attendant.
Her evidence had wrung his heart--had condemned him to the most shameful death man can die; but she had only told the truth, and truth is mighty and will prevail.

So she came and nursed him now, forgetting to eat or sleep in her zeal and devotion, and finally wooed him back to life and reason, while those who loved him best prayed God, by night and by day, that he might die.
But, while hovering in the "Valley of the Shadow," death had lost all its terror for him--he rose a changed man.
"And she is there," he said, with his eyes fixed dreamily on the one patch of blue May sky he could see between his prison bars--"my wronged, my murdered, my beloved wife! Ah, yes, death is the highest boon the judges of this world can give me now!" And so the last night came.

He sat alone.