In this walk, Elizabeth had fallen behind her parents. When she saw
them going into the prison, she quickened her pace, for her father
beckoned to her. But she was in no earnest haste to follow, as became
sufficiently manifest when she was left alone.

They had not gone far in their talk, however, when she came to the
doorway. Laval, in all his speech, was a deliberate man, and neither
Adolphus nor his wife showed any eagerness in the conduct of the
conversation now begun. The contrast between the gloom of the apartment
and the light and cheerfulness of their own home was apparent to all of
them. Elizabeth felt the oppression under which each of the little
party seemed to labor, the instant she joined her parents. Susceptible
as they all were to the influences of Nature, her sunshine and her
shadow, this gloom which fell upon them was nothing more than might
have been anticipated.

Jailer Laval was homesick, and innocent of a suspicion of what was
passing in the minds of his guests; he was therefore free in making his
complaints, and acknowledged that he was not fit to keep the
prison,--it required a man of more nerve than he had. The dread of the
place which his poor wife had entertained seemed to have taken
possession of him since her death. All the arguments which he once
used, in the endeavor to bolster her courage, he had now forgotten. He
was very cautious when he began to speak of the prisoner, and tried to
divert Adolphus from the point by saying that he would much prefer a
house full of convicts to one so empty as this. There was at least
something like society in that, and something to do.

Adolphus, in spite of his discontent at hearing merely these deductions