The long hours dragged on--oh, so long!--oh, so long! Mollie could take no breakfast that morning.

She could only walk up and down her prison-chamber in a frenzy of impatience for the coming of the man she hated.
He came at last--cloaked and masked, and wearing the false hair and beard--utterly unrecognizable.
"At last, Miss Dane," he calmly said, "you have sent for me.

You are tired of your prison?
You long for freedom?
You accede to my terms ?" "Yes," said Mollie, with a sort of sobbing cry, for she felt utterly broken down.

"Anything, anything under heaven for freedom! Another week like this, and I should go mad! But, oh! if you are a man--if you have any pity in your heart--don't ask this sacrifice! Let me go as I am! See, I plead to you!--I, who never pleaded to mortal before! Let me go, for pity's sake, now, as I came! Don't, don't, don't ask me to marry you!" She held up her clasped hands--bright tears standing in her passionate eyes.

But the tall, masked man loomed up like a dark, stern ghost.
"You were merciless to me, Mollie Dane." "But I am only a girl--only a silly, flirting girl of sixteen! Oh, forget and forgive, and let me go!" "I can not, Mollie, for--I love you!" "Love me ?" Mollie repeated, scorn and anguish in her voice.