Her decision was promptly rendered that it was best to go with the carriage and horses, and trust to Mrs. Carleton for the rest. No alternative was presented to her mind.
"Do you think," said she, "that if I were in her place, separated from my children, I should consider any proffers of friendship or expressions of sympathy as coming from sincere motives which would not prompt so much of an effort as that for me? I would move heaven and earth to the rescue if possible. I will go, and it seems to me more advisable for Walter to go with me than for you, Ernest."
Mr. Livingston yielded, and Walter raised ho objection to the arrangement. He had exhausted his fund of legal knowledge in the vain hope of detecting some loop-hole through which the innocent might be rescued and the guilty meet his deserts; but though in the liberal construction of the law every other prisoner might be entitled to an impartial hearing, woman, in her married state, was such a nonentity that this privilege could not be accorded to her, and he felt the force and justice of Rosalind's appeal.
They started on the appointed day, which was very warm and sultry, and fortunately encountered no one on their approach to the scene of adventure. The avenue being a winding one, the carriage would not come in sight until very near the entrance to the house, and by walking the horses so little noise was made that no attention was attracted to the spot from the inmates.
The disagreeable sensations agitating Mrs. Carle-
