Lucy, we need not speak; suffice it to say, that on the day in which she
had performed the last duty to her uncle, she learned for the first time
her lover's situation.

On that evening, in the convict's cell, the cousins met.

Their conference was low, for the jailer stood within hearing; and it was
broken by Lucy's convulsive sobs. But the voice of one whose iron nerves
were not unworthy of the offspring of William Brandon, was clear and
audible to her ear, even though uttered in a whisper that scarcely
stirred his lips. It seemed as if Lucy, smitten to the inmost heart by
the generosity with which her lover had torn himself from her at the time
that her wealth might have raised him in any other country far above the
perils and the crimes of his career in this; perceiving now, for the
first time, and in all their force, the causes of his mysterious conduct;
melted by their relationship, and forgetting herself utterly in the
desolation and dark situation in which she beheld one who, whatever his
crimes, had not been criminal towards her;--it seemed as if, carried away
by these emotions, she had yielded altogether to the fondness and
devotion of her nature,--that she had wished to leave home and friends
and fortune, and share with him his punishment and his shame.

"Why," she faltered,--"why--why not? We are all that is left to each
other in the world! Your father and mine were brothers; let me be to you
as a sister. What is there left for me here? Not one being whom I love,
or who cares for me,--not one!"

It was then that Clifford summoned all his courage, as he answered.
Perhaps, now that he felt (though here his knowledge was necessarily
confused and imperfect) his birth was not unequal to hers; now that he