Slowly came over Sybil the consciousness of the dreadful eve
that was past. She remained for some time on her knees in
silent prayer: then stepping lightly, she approached the
window. It was barred. The room which she inhabited was a
high story of the house; it looked down upon one of those half
tawdry, half squalid streets that one finds in the vicinities
of our theatres; some wretched courts, haunts of misery and
crime, blended with gin palaces and slang taverns, burnished
and brazen; not a being was stirring. It was just that single
hour of the twenty-four when crime ceases, debauchery is
exhausted, and even desolation finds a shelter.
It was dawn, but still grey. For the first time since she had
been a prisoner, Sybil was alone. A prisoner, and in a few
hours to be examined before a public tribunal! Her heart
sank. How far her father had committed himself was entirely a
mystery to her; but the language of Morley, and all that she
had witnessed, impressed her with the conviction that he was
deeply implicated. He had indeed spoken in their progress to
the police office with confidence as to the future, but then
he had every motive to encourage her in her despair, and to
support her under the overwhelming circumstances in which she
was so suddenly involved.
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