Into the Highways and Hedges

Barnabas Thorpe had been blessed all his life with a physique that was strong enough to bear the exactions of his spirit. In this respect he had been remarkably fortunate. But, after all, his body was made of flesh and blood; and flesh and blood give way at last.

It was a great source of grief to him that he could no longer heal as he had once healed; that strange power seemed to have, in a large measure, left him.

"May be it's because I am not fit to ha' it," he said sadly. "One who hates his brother whom he has seen deserves no power to bring down healing from the God he has not seen."

The surgeon, who was watching Barnabas dress a wound that had been inflicted by Bill's poker, laughed impatiently.

"That's nonsense, you know," he remarked; but he no longer said, "That's cant".

The preacher's surgery was gentler than the doctor's, which was certainly rough. The man's eye was badly damaged, and the lightest touch caused agony; he turned over on his face with a groan when Barnabas had finished.

"I used to be able to lighten pain more," said Barnabas. "I've often known that, when I've put my hand on one suffering like that, the torment has been stilled for a bit and he's fallen asleep. But I can't do it now!"

"Of course you can't," said the doctor. "You had a sort of mesmeric faculty that you believed miraculous; but your own nervous energy has been pretty well kicked out of you now, and you are ill and weak; and, naturally, you can't play those tricks which, let me tell you, are best left alone at any time. The failure has nothing whatever to do with your morals, it has to do with your body. If you had been the greatest rogue unhung, so long as your iniquities hadn't touched your health, you'd still have possessed that faculty. There was no need to pray about it; or, if you'd prayed to the devil, it would have come to the same thing; except, of course, that people prefer the other arrangement—it's the pleasanter myth of the two."

Barnabas frowned, looking straight in front of him from under his fair eyebrows.

Scepticism was utterly impossible to him; the doctor's remarks could not touch the simplicity of his faith; he had rejoiced in his healing power, but if it had been clearly demonstrated to him a thousand times that his belief in it was a fallacy, the demonstrator would have left him practically much where he had been before.

"The same God as makes souls makes the bodies to 'em, I suppose," he said. "I can't see as it makes the least bit o' difference which the power comes through, sir. It's only 'through' arter all. I fancied it went straight fro' my soul to the sick man's; but you are more larned, and, happen, you know better; happen, as you say, it went fro' my body—it's no matter, is it, so long as it went? It wasn't fro' the devil, I know, because it was good and healed; I never heard as he did that; he destroys both soul and body. I've never prayed to him," said the preacher, giving the doctor's words a literal interpretation that half amused, half irritated his companion; "but you're wrong when you say it 'ud ha' come to the same thing."

"Oh, you think that the supernatural supply would have dried up, eh?" said Dr. Merrill. The preacher's reply took him by surprise.

"No; I'd not say that for sartain," he said, after a moment's reflection. "If ye mean the power—God doan't stop our breath when we use it to deny and blaspheme Him. If He did, I'd ha' been dead in my boyhood, and ye'd not ha' it now. Happen the power would ha' come just th' same (though I ain't sure about it), like the breath; but it 'ud ha' made a difference. Ha' ye never seen a man using God's gifts for th' devil's service? I have. Ay, an' so have ye, an' ye know too, that he'd better be dead than do it! As for supernatural, I doan't ever understan' what people mean by that. If it means fro' above—why, everything is that; I can't see the thing as isn't—unless it's fro' below," said the preacher, still frowning. "Happen ye can explain it to me."

The doctor shook his head.

"No," he said, "you're right. There's nothing especially supernatural in your creed, Thorpe; because, as you say, it's all that; nor in mine, because it's none of it; so we'll leave the term to the great majority, who are neither fish, fowl, nor good red herring. Anyhow, you've got a marvellous knack with your fingers, whether it comes from heaven or hell, and I suppose you'll swear it must be one or t'other! It's pretty to see how quickly you bandage. It's not every doctor who would let you try your hand like this," said the surgeon, who was rather proud of his liberality. "But I like to see uncommon talent, even in a quack. It's a pity it's mixed with superstition. Now look here; Hopping Jack's sight is gone, and no amount of praying can possibly bring it back to this eye, as I can prove to you in a moment."

The unfortunate Jack swore under his breath, when the surgeon turned his face to the light again.

"Let him alone, sir," said the preacher quickly. "There's no need to touch him again. Oh, ay, I've no sort o' doubt ye know a deal more nor I do; if ye put your power down to th' same source, happen ye'd be a bit tenderer in your way o' using it; ye say it 'ud come to the same, but some o' your patients 'ud feel a difference."

The doctor shrugged his shoulders; if any one but Barnabas Thorpe had commented on his want of feeling, and infliction of pain not always necessary, he would have snubbed him ruthlessly; but, with the evidence before him of a disregard to personal injury, that had wrung genuine admiration from him, he couldn't accuse the preacher of undue and effeminate softness.

He was not naturally cruel; but a man must be upheld by an uncommonly high aim if he can work constantly among brutal and debased natures without either giving way to despair or hardening his heart.

There was a story current in the prison about his having got a man off hanging on condition of his being allowed to try a new operation on him. He was no philanthropist, but he was fond of his profession and a great experimenter; there was not a rogue in Newgate but had a wholesome awe of the little red-haired surgeon.

Hopping Jack was actually grateful to Barnabas.

"It's a case of 'when the devil was ill,'" Dr. Merrill said. "He won't listen to you when he can do without your bandaging, Thorpe! He'll be able to mimic you to the life by the time he's up again—drawl and all."

"But that won't drive me to hold my tongue," said Barnabas smiling.

And, as it happened, the doctor was wrong. Hopping Jack refrained from caricaturing the preacher, even when he got better.

"It ain't that I couldn't!" he said regretfully to Barnabas. "I could do you now as you wouldn't know which was yourself! you're easy to take off; and I could twist 'em all round to listen to me—every man Jack of 'em; but I won't."

"Ye'd be playing a scurvy trick," said Barnabas; "an' in Satan's service. He's a bad paymaster."

Jack winked with the one eye left.

"Gammon! It ain't for that that I don't do it," he said. "Your Master lets you go to gaol too, don't He? you ain't a bit better off for Him. No, it ain't for that, nor for the sake of the stuff you talk. I've heard all that before. But you had a fine chance to pay me out for the game I started in the yard; and you didn't take it—quite contrariwise; and that sticks in my throat, for I tell you I felt pretty sick when the doctor, d——n him, called you in."

"Why, man, what did you suppose I'd do?" said Barnabas. "Ye needn't be grateful to me for not behaving like a devil."

In his most unregenerate days he could never have revenged himself in cold blood on a defenceless and suffering creature. The idea was so utterly abhorrent to him that he felt disgusted at the suggestion, and even at the gratitude that took for granted that he might have been tempted in such wise.

Hopping Jack laughed hoarsely, and said he knew what he'd have done if he'd got a cove who'd broken his ribs under his thumb. But, apparently, from that hour he looked upon the preacher as belonging to a different species, and placed in him an implicit trust that was not without pathos.

When the time of the sessions drew near he became alternately wildly flighty and deeply despondent,—the former being his ordinary condition, the latter only occasional.

He was superstitious, and had a deep-seated belief in luck, which had failed him of late; when the despondent phase was on, he became rather dangerous both to himself and to others.

Physical pain added largely to his depression, for he still suffered from the injury to his eye. Barnabas felt the responsibility, that always drove him to do his utmost, doubly great, because this waggish scamp, who was the approved "funny man" of Newgate, evinced at times a strong, almost dog-like affection for him. But Jack was not the only one among all that miserable crew who appealed strongly to Barnabas Thorpe's ruling passion to "save".

After all, the reckless licence, the apparently brutal callousness, and shameful blasphemy that reigned in the wards were heightened and partially excused by the fact that half these men felt the shadow of the gallows on them; with such a spectre in the corner they drank deep and laughed loudly, lest it should grow too plain. "Oh, it ain't come to that yet," one of them said, shuddering, in answer to an entreaty of the preacher to pause and think. "I ain't got to the thinkin' time."

Yet, on the whole, Barnabas influenced them. The prison chaplain had given up the press yard as a bad job; but then the chaplain had a good many interests which were quite as important to him as the "converting" of sinners. Barnabas was a man of one idea: even where the woman he loved was concerned, he would have deliberately advised her to lay down her bodily life, as she had laid down her position and worldly wealth, if that could, by any possibility, have seemed necessary for the furtherance of Christ's kingdom; and his extreme singleness of aim told, as it always must, whether the aim is high or low. It is possible indeed that his very limitations made him the more effective. The men who see many sides of a question are chary of spilling their blood. The liberal-minded philosophers have their place in the world, but they can't rescue those who are sinking; they can only explain why they sink—which, no doubt, is equally useful.

Those Newgate sermons were preached with the intense fervour of one who believed that the "night was soon coming" for many of his hearers. But the constant strain on mind and body was growing more evident: the preacher was no longer the man he had been when he had first entered Newgate, and protested so vigorously against the iniquities of the press yard; he had grown quite grey in these three months, and his broad shoulders were bowed.

Dr. Merrill was moved to violent indignation on the subject. It was sheer waste of the most magnificent constitution he had ever come across, he said; and Barnabas Thorpe was innocent. Barnabas himself was not indignant; his was not the sort of nature that turns sour in adversity. He generally took things simply, with few questionings as to the why and wherefore; but the hopefulness that had characterised him as to his own prospects rather failed about this time.

"It's allus afore seemed to me most like that I'd get what I wanted, for I used to feel somehow that there was such a deal o' pushin' power in wanting," he said once. "Two months back I hadn't a doubt but what I'd be proved clear; but I doan't know now. Arter all, when I come to think, I've never had what I've most set my heart on for my own sake, though I've been helped in my work. Some people want sunshine, and some are coarser natured, maybe, and best managed t'other way. Happen I won't be proved innocent; happen I'm the sort as is best without much satisfaction. But it seems as if that 'ud be hard on my wife, for she's quite a different make to me, and a much finer; and I can't somehow think as she needs sorrow. My poor little lass! she's had enough."

The very tone of the remark showed how the natural buoyant spirit had been knocked out of him; though his passion for working in season and out of season was even stronger than before.

He was gentler than he had been; and the most miserable turned to him with an instinctive hope that the mercy of heaven might possibly, after all, be as deep as the mercy of this man, even if equally uncompromising. He saw Margaret seldom now. He often was not fit to stand at the grating; and, moreover, he feared that these unsatisfactory meetings were almost more pain than pleasure to his darling.

Early in November, Hopping Jack, together with three accomplices, was tried, and condemned to death; but while the sentence of hanging was recorded oftener then than it is at present, there was also a greater probability of getting off. In nine cases out of ten the sentence was successfully appealed against; and the tenth man probably suffered the extreme penalty as an "example," at times when there was a scare about the especial sin he was condemned for.

Unfortunately for Jack, the crime in which he had been taken red-handed was rife just then; and the public hot against that class of evil-doers.

The agony of suspense was consequently sharp enough; and Barnabas in his heart hoped that a juster judge than any earthly one would not hold the poor wretch guilty for the mad outbreaks that characterised this awful time of waiting for the result of the appeal. Surely no one had the right to inflict a six weeks' torture of uncertainty! He succeeded with much difficulty in getting Jack off an imprisonment in the dark cell. He felt convinced that the dark would drive the man out of his remaining senses. After that, he held himself accountable for Jack's vagaries, and very frequently managed to restrain them. The doctor, at the preacher's earnest entreaty, declared the culprit an "unfit subject" for solitary confinement in utter darkness.

"Though, mind you, he's an equally 'unfit subject' for association with his fellows in the light," he remarked to Barnabas. "They'd much better put him out of the world as soon and as quickly as possible. He's one of nature's mistakes, and you had better not have mercy on mistakes, Thorpe, as you ought to know." A piece of advice that had been given before, with equal want of effect!

The wardsman liked Barnabas none the better for this second interference; but it did not at first occur to the preacher that he was being purposely ill-treated when his food was scantier than it ought to have been, when his gruel was handed to him in a pail, instead of a basin, and when he was carefully excluded from a share of the fire.

When he did discover that these paltry revenges were constant and unremitting, and likely to continue, unless he paid the ward dues, he took no notice of them. There was, certainly, a strong vein of the family obstinacy in Barnabas, and he wasn't going to "give in" to an illegal extortion simply because he was rather colder, hungrier, and more uncomfortable than need be.

The worst days of Newgate, when a gaoler could actually torture or flog a rebellious prisoner, were happily past, and he had too much sturdy pride to complain to the authorities of such mean and petty indignities as he endured, but they probably affected his broken health; and that November was bitterly cold.

He had never in his life before suffered from weather; but he suffered terribly now, both by day and night. The rugs that covered the men were never washed, and he had resolved to prefer comparative cleanliness and cold to unmitigated dirt, and was very angry with his own softness for feeling the frost, "like a woman". Indeed, in his ordinary health it would have done him no harm; but, unfortunately, his bones had not recovered from the violent handling they had received, and he lay awake pretty constantly with racking rheumatic pains in them, and began to stoop like a man of sixty.

At last, towards the end of the month, his turn came.

The case had roused wide interest, both actors in it having already, in widely different ways, made a certain amount of sensation in London. The court was full, and the crowd outside dense.

More than one glance was directed curiously at the preacher's wife, who stood among the spectators, and was quite unconscious of criticism or interest, whether kindly or adverse. Margaret stood between Tom Thorpe and Dr. Merrill; but her whole attention was concentrated on Barnabas. This sea of upturned faces was nothing to her.

George Sauls, looking over the heads of the crowd, caught a glimpse of her, and bit his lip with a sensation of sharp pain, and of something very like envy. He would almost have exchanged places with the prisoner, if by so doing he could make that one woman look at him thus with all her soul in her eyes. That which he could not have, that which would never be his, seemed to him at that moment to loom large and clear, to be the only reality in a world of shadows. He told himself that he was mad, quite mad, and that it was lucky for him that his madness could take no effect. He told himself that this woman was only like other women; that even if her heart could be turned to him by some magic, if he could give all his ambitions and all his wealth in exchange for her, he would wake, when his dream should be over, and regret the bargain. He told himself that he knew what this was made of; that he had been "in love" before now. But the odd part of it was that he did not know.

If the wickedness of our own hearts sometimes takes us by surprise, so, I think, does their goodness. Mr. Sauls had a constitutional dislike to mysteries, and preferred thinking about what he could understand; but there were elements in his love for Meg which would astonish him yet.

Meanwhile, this story that the counsel for the prosecution was telling was not a particularly pleasant one for Mrs. Thorpe to hear; though it was absolutely necessary that it should be told. George Sauls' expression grew stolid and impenetrable as he listened. He was already low in her estimation. Very well: she should have the satisfaction of knowing that her estimate was right, and he would have the satisfaction of seeing Barnabas Thorpe hang.

The counsel dwelt on the enmity that had existed between the prosecutor and the prisoner,—an enmity that he described as being, on the prisoner's side, passionate and unrestrained, and almost bordering on monomania. He should call two witnesses to the fact of Barnabas Thorpe's having already attempted Mr. Sauls' life fifteen years before this last outrage. He spoke of that scene in the churchyard where not even the presence of death had availed to quell the prisoner's mad passion.

Neither the futility of such a wild act of vengeance, nor the indecency of brawling over a newly made grave, had had power to restrain him then: the same violent impulse had evidently possessed him again in later life, when no friendly hands were present to hold him back. He went on to describe how the two men had met again in the hay-field, where the preacher had denounced Mr. Sauls as "unfit to sit at table with Mrs. Thorpe," and when Mr. Sauls had suggested that the preacher had better try to "bring him to repentance" when Mrs. Thorpe was not by. A farm labourer, who would be called to give evidence, had overheard that interview.

Then he told how Mr. Sauls had started on his walk to N——town, following a track that lay across the marshes. This track led only to Caulderwell Farm, and was little frequented. He was followed by his enemy. Mr. Sauls openly acknowledged that he had done his best, on this occasion, to provoke a quarrel. He had demanded an explanation of the words that the preacher had used in the hay-field, and had asked tauntingly whether Barnabas Thorpe only preached "when sheltered by petticoats". Close on this scene followed the tragic and nearly fatal crime for which Barnabas Thorpe stood arraigned. The preacher and Mr. Sauls had parted in anger; Mr. Sauls had gone but a short distance when he was struck to the ground by a blow on the back of his head. Mr. Sauls did not see his assailant, but the facts of the case spoke for themselves. Crimes of violence were rare in that part of the country. Mr. Sauls was a stranger in N——town. He was not aware that any man, with the exception of the preacher, bore him, or had reason to bear him, a grudge. Whoever had struck the blow had meant to kill, and had all but accomplished the fulfilment of his desire. Tom Thorpe, who had found the prosecutor unconscious and hurt nigh to death, and the doctor who was in attendance on him, would be called as witnesses.

The prisoner listened to the speech for the prosecution with a curiously composed air. Once only, when the counsel described the meeting on the marsh, his brows contracted with momentary anxiety. A minute later he raised his head and looked hard at George Sauls. He was glad that that gentleman had had the grace to keep Margaret's name out of the affair. His eyes met his accuser's, and, oddly enough, for a single moment, in the midst of this trial, which was for the life of one of them, these two were of the same mind.

When the witnesses for the prosecution were called, the prisoner's interest seemed to lapse. He nodded reassuringly to poor old Giles, who was heartbroken at having to give evidence against him, but otherwise he paid little heed to what was going on. He was physically exhausted, which partly accounted for his apathy, and he had made up his mind to let things take their course. He had absolutely refused to allow Margaret to employ counsel on his behalf, but he had very little fear as to the result of the trial. His defence was in "the hands of the Lord"; he would "bide quiet," and leave it there. Meg had found it vain to attempt to shake this resolution. Barnabas had a prejudice against lawyers, and his prejudices were not easily removed, but he had also a more reasonable ground for refusing their aid. He hated half measures, and felt that there was little use in telling half a story, while he was bound in honour not to tell the whole. In the absence of counsel, he made one short and trenchant remark on his own behalf.

"If I had meant to kill Mr. Sauls, there'd ha' been no need for me to come behind an' hit i' th' dark," he said. "I should ha' done it face to face, for I was a bit th' stronger o' th' two then; an', if ye ask him, he'll bear me out there. I'm not generally scared o' fair fighting."

There was a little hastily suppressed murmur in the court at the last words.

The story of the middle yard had somehow got about. No one doubted the truth of that last statement. The man's voice was low and his speech as short as could well be, but his bowed shoulders and whitened hair spoke for him. Margaret turned to the red-haired doctor with a proud smile on her white lips.

"They'll have to believe him," she said; and the doctor laughed grimly. "He had better have all Newgate into the witness box!"

But indeed there was no need for the denizens of Newgate to testify to the preacher's character. Honest men there were in plenty who were more than ready with their evidence. Barnabas called three only; but one of the most distinctive features of the trial was the crowd of would-be witnesses who clamoured outside the police court, begging, and sometimes threatening in their eagerness, "to say a word" for the accused. "I know that the preacher never murdered any one or tried to—why? 'Cos he cured my baby when it was chokin' with croup; and I've trudged seven miles to say so," said one draggled, tired-out woman, who could not be persuaded to see that her baby's life had no possible connection with the case.

"Ye've tuk oop th' wrong soart, an' I've summat to say to th' judge abeawt th' preacher. Thae knows he tented me through the black fever an'——What? ye won't let me in? The judge is a fule man!" cried a sturdy and irate countryman, who was convinced that his not being allowed to storm the witness box was a proof of the gross miscarriage of justice. Men actually fought to get into the already over-crowded court. The testimony as to the preacher's character from east and west and north and south was simply overpowering.

Margaret lingered to shake hands with more than one friend of the preacher's when she left the heated court at the end of the first day of the trial.

"When my husband is free again, he will thank you himself," she said. And the men drew back to let her pass, with little murmurs of sympathy. Tom Thorpe was still on one side of her, and the prison doctor on the other.

"Ye'd better get out o' this as quick as ye can," Tom cried; but Meg, who usually shrank from contact with strangers, was in no hurry now. The shouts for Barnabas and the groans for Mr. Sauls made her blood tingle. The sharp anxiety at her heart hurt less when she was in the midst of those excited partisans. She had smiled bravely whenever Barnabas had looked at her, but the sight of him had awakened a passion of indignation that she dreaded being alone with. She wished she could have stayed in the midst of a crowd till the second day's trial should begin. Tom was excited too; his deep-set eyes were glowing, and he hurried her on almost roughly.

"Look 'ee," he said, "I'm thinking some o' those lads as came wi' me 'ull mayhap gi'e Mr. Sauls a warm welcome when he comes out; an' I'd like to see it! Just get clear o' th' scrimmage, an' then I'll go back. Lord bless ye! I've been too kind to that gentleman; but now I've seen our lad's face——" His voice choked.

Meg looked first at him, and then at the knot of L——shire men who stood by the door, and whose "warm welcome" was waiting for George Sauls. She felt instinctively that it would be of no avail to plead with Tom. She turned round and caught hold of the doctor; who had, she knew, been kind to her husband.

"They mean to catch Mr. Sauls when he comes out of court," she said rapidly. "He'd better get away by another door, if he can."

The doctor nodded. "Mr. Sauls can generally be trusted to take care of number one," he remarked; "but I'll tell him."

Tom, who heard the words, laughed angrily. For a moment, Dr. Merrill fancied that the preacher's brother was going forcibly to prevent his carrying the message. But, indignant as Tom was, he felt responsible to Barnabas for Margaret, and wouldn't plunge into a row with her hands clinging to his arm.

"That woman will catch it for having prevented him!" thought the doctor. "There's no doubt about it, there is a queer temper in that family."

When they were clear of the crowd, Meg broke the silence.

"You are very angry with me," she said.

Tom's anger would have repelled and frightened her once; but just now she experienced an odd sort of consolation in the intensity of the wrath and grief he felt for his brother's sake. Tom "cared" as no one else did.

"I'm not such a good Christian as ye are," he said. His voice sounded gruff, and he spoke in sharp undertones, turning his head away. He was so angry that he could not trust himself to look at the fair face his brother loved, though he held his anger with a tight rein.

"So ye wouldn't ha' the man as has made our lad look like that—ay, and 'ull hang him, if he can,—so much as scratched, eh? Ye sent to warn him! Good Lord! it's Barnabas' wife as kindly warns Barnabas' murderer! Ye'll forgi'e the man as 'ud like to kill your husband wi' his lyin' tongue, till seventy times seven! I've known ye a bit hard on Barnabas times, but——" He checked himself, and swallowed the rest of that sentence; but the sharp pull up brought the colour to Meg's pale face.

"Oh, ye are right!" he said, after a silence. "An' uncommonly forgiving an' a remarkable good Christian lass, as I said afore; ye are right—only d——n me, if I wouldn't rayther have a sinner for a wife!"

"Ah," said Meg; "but you are giving me credit for more Christianity than I possess." He did look at her then, struck by something strange in her tone. Barnabas' wife was altered too. With that too vivid consciousness of what Barnabas had gone through, burning like fire somewhere at the bottom of her heart, it struck her as almost ludicrous that Tom should suppose she had pity on the preacher's enemy.

"I heard Long John swearing that he'd served with you man and boy for nigh thirty years, and had never in his life seen one of you put out; that, in fact, your mildness as a family was proverbial!" said Margaret. She did not speak like herself, she was like another woman to-day,—older and sterner and less gentle.

"Of course he did," said Tom. "It 'ud ha' been uncommon queer if one o' the L——shire lads as I've licked into shape wi' my own hands didn't swear by us."

"It would," said Meg gravely. "But if you and those same lads had caught and half murdered Mr. Sauls as he left the court, it would be an odd sort of comment on what we've been hearing, wouldn't it? Perhaps, after that, they'd hardly believe in the great gentleness of the Thorpe disposition, or see how unlikely it is that one of you should hit a man with a bill-hook."

Tom stood still in the middle of the road, and caught her arm with a grasp which hurt her, though neither of them was the least aware of that at the moment.

"Ye doan't tell me ye believe he did that?" he said; and she wondered for a moment what he would have done, if she had believed it.

"No—I know the truth," she said. "And, even if he had not told me, I should still have known that it would have been impossible for him to hit unfairly. But it's not in the natural mildness of your temper that I trust, Tom. Barnabas has something more than that."

Tom gave a despairing grunt. "An' the summat more's just his ruin!" he said, letting her go again. "There! I hadn't no kind o' business to ha' spoken rough to 'ee, lass; and Barnabas 'ud not ha' forgi'en me in a hurry, if he'd heard. I meant to ha' been a help to 'ee; but, I think, I'm mazed wi' to-day's work. It were seeing him."

"Yes, yes; I know, Tom," said Meg. "Do you think I don't know how it breaks one's heart to see him like that? But, when we get him safe home again, we will take such care of him! All the care he ever gave me he shall have back with interest. He will be obliged to get strong, for we will nurse him so well." And again the wistful tenderness in her voice struck Tom as something fresh.

"I wish it were Monday!" she said. "There is no doubt that he will be acquitted. Oh, no doubt at all! Didn't you hear that red-haired doctor say so? He said that there was no direct evidence against Barnabas, and that even Mr. Sauls' cleverness could not make an innocent man guilty. Barnabas looked as if he weren't attending; I think he feels that what becomes of him personally is not his business; or else he was too worn out to listen. On Monday it will be over. I wish it were Monday!"

"Ay! it 'ull be over," said Tom; "but what if it's over the wrong way? The devil does win sometimes, lass, whatever Barnabas may say."

"It isn't possible," said Meg. Then the soft curves of her lips straightened. "If the devil wins," she said, "why, then—you may do what you like. You may tear Mr. Sauls to pieces, Tom, and I will stand by, and clap my hands and cry 'well done!'"

"Amen!" said Tom, holding out his hand. He knew now what had changed Barnabas' wife.

They walked on in silence through the darkening street after that, engrossed by their own thoughts. Tom had got a room in the same house as his sister-in-law; he nodded "good-night" absently to her when they reached home. Five minutes later she knocked at his door, and entered his room with a plate in her hands.

"I've brought you something to eat. Do take it, Tom. You've had nothing all day," she said gently.

"I haven't the heart to feast," said Tom. "An' I hate to see ye waiting on me!" But he swallowed the food hastily, seeing that she would take no denial. Meg's sisterly attentions half touched, half irritated him just then. Anxiety always made Tom cross.

"Are ye gadding about again?" he asked, glancing at her bonnet.

"Yes, I am going to Commercial Road," said Meg. "Mr. Potter tells me that he has got some clothes belonging to Barnabas,—a jersey, and a shirt and a cloth cap. I am going to fetch them and take them to the prison to-night. They say the ward is terribly cold."

"I'll go for 'ee," said Tom, getting up and stretching himself. "What way is it, eh?"

"We will both go," said Meg. "I can't sit still." And Tom checked the remonstrance that was on his lips.

"Come along, lass," he said. "Though it's a wonder ye want my company any more! Eh, the wind's blowing wi' ice in it. Come along, if ye will."

"I think I was glad you were angry," said Meg, laughing a little unsteadily, as they went out again.

"It is good to have one of his own people with me. I couldn't have borne to be with any one but you just now. It is you who belong to him."

"Eh? Times are changed, lass," said Tom. "Barnabas would ha' gi'en his ears once to ha' heard ye say that."

"He wouldn't have let me say that I'd cry 'well done' if you revenged yourself on his enemy, though. Tom, I was mad. Forget it, please!"

"Would ye forgive him?" said Tom, looking hard at her. He repeated the question again presently and more insistingly. "Would ye forgive him—if he won?"

"No!" she said. "One may forgive one's own enemies, but I could never forgive those that injure the people I love. It's not in me to be so good as that—I meant what I said. I should have no pity left for him—for it would all be given," said Meg. She pressed her hands tight against her breast as she walked, and her steps quickened so that Tom could hardly keep pace with her. "But, all the same, I would not cry 'well done', and I would do my best to prevent you—for Barnabas' sake."

"Would ye? Ye wouldn't find your preventin' answer twice, my good lass!" said Tom. "Well, I'm glad ye doan't forgive him. It's more natural like. Ye aren't so much like snow and moonshine as ye were. It made me sick when I thought ye were sorry for that man. A woman who can be sorry for her husband's enemy can't care much. I'm glad ye've some flesh and blood in the way you're made!"

"Do you think that I care less than you?" said Meg.

"Than me! ay, it stands to reason——" began Tom, then stopped short. "I wish I'd left that gentleman in the ditch!" he ended with some irrelevance. "I'll never pick up any one again; there's a deal to answer for."

"Barnabas wouldn't wish that," said Meg.

"Barnabas!" he cried. "He doesn't know what's good for him! Oh, ay, I know what ye are going to say. He'll ha' his reward i' the next world; but what do ye think he'll do wi' it? Why, he'll be miserable in a happy place. When Barnabas gets to heaven he'll ha' no peace till he's sent to hell, my dear, nor give the angels peace either. Ay, ye may cry out, Barnabas' wife, but it's true, an' ye'll see it, if ever ye get to heaven too."

CHAPTER VIII.

Mr. Sauls took the doctor's hint, and risked no broken bones.

"I might have a remarkable piece of evidence as to the excellence of that charming family's temper," he remarked; "but it's not worth while being mobbed for that. I wonder Tom Thorpe is such a fool!"

"Mrs. Thorpe sent you the warning," said the doctor.

"Did she?" said George, rather surprised. "Ah! she saw if Mr. Tom broke my head afresh, he'd help to damn the preacher."

He opined justly enough. Love and hate had arrived for once at the same conclusion.

Mrs. Sauls had been in the court, as well as dozens of other ladies not so immediately concerned, who had stared through opera glasses at the preacher, and whispered to each other that the slight woman in black with the pale face and cropped hair was Mrs. Thorpe, "who was Margaret Deane, you know".

George Sauls made his exit in safety, and went to Hill Street to talk things over with his mother.

"You won't win, my dear," she said. "He can't prove that he didn't do it; but you can't prove that he did; and the jury always incline to the side of poor man versus gentleman. His ragged coat and his rough accent are decidedly in his favour; he'll get off."

"I've done my little best," said George, throwing himself on the sofa full length. "That's always a comfort. As you say, he'll possibly escape through the holes in his shirt. An English jury have a curiously sentimental leaning to poverty. May I smoke? Thanks! Well, it is some small satisfaction to reflect that I've given him three months in Newgate; and I don't think it has agreed with him."

The old lady nodded thoughtfully; she and George always thoroughly understood each other.

She knew that he liked his cigar, and the warm room, and the soft sofa the better because Barnabas Thorpe was suffering bodily discomfort; and it was a very natural source of satisfaction, she considered.

"And there's a further consolation," he went on, after puffing away in silence for a few minutes. "You see I am resigning myself to the chance of his not being hung. There's another consolation. If I win, he'll be a martyr, as sure as I'm a sinner; he'll have such a glorification as will disguise the fact that he is being punished for a dastardly attempt at murder. They'll forget that. He'll be 'injured poverty'; and I, 'oppressing opulence'. But, if he gets off for want of sufficient evidence, then they won't forget. I fancy his preaching won't go down so well then—there'll always be whispers."

"That's true," said Mrs. Sauls. "It's odd that they have never traced those diamonds since your pockets were rifled."

"I believe some one must have seen me lying there, before Mr. Tom played good Samaritan, and must have helped himself. I don't believe the preacher would have stolen from me, do you?"

He had great faith in his mother's judgment; this time it took him by surprise.

"If you want my private opinion on the subject—but perhaps you don't?" she began.

"Oh yes, I do. I always like to hear your private opinions. They are refreshingly original. Go on."

"Well, my dear, my private opinion is this: A man who is capable of hitting behind in the dark, is capable of emptying his victim's pockets; but that man did neither the one nor the other."

George took his cigar from between his lips, and sat upright with a jerk. His mother was sitting by the fire, her rich silk dress tucked up, her feet on the fender, her light, cat-like eyes gazing into the red embers. She nodded again, as if in answer to his movement.

"That is strictly between ourselves, George," she said; "but I am convinced he didn't do it. He made a shocking poor defence! If he had been guilty, he might have found more to say. He wasn't attempting to exonerate himself. My dear, I watched him all the time, and he hardly took it in when a point was made for and when against him. He knew when his wife moved, and he was pleased when that fine old clergyman called him his friend; but he wasn't following the case. He is ill; any one could see that he could hardly stand. But, if he had been guilty, his nerves would have been on the rack all the time; and, if he had known nothing about it, he'd have shown more fight. He knows something, and has made up his mind that his tongue's tied, and that he will just leave it to Providence."

"Ah well," said George, "if nothing short of hanging will teach Barnabas Thorpe that Providence does not go out of its way to dance attendance on him, I humbly hope he may learn that lesson with a rope round his neck. I don't feel called on to baulk it. If he is such a fool as to shelter criminals, let him."

"Certainly," said Mrs. Sauls. "But, if he were your client, my son, he'd be cleared. If you had been acting for him, you'd have found out, before now, who the real criminal was, whether Barnabas Thorpe tried to shelter him or not."

George laughed. "I am too old a bird to be caught by such a bare-faced compliment, old lady!" said he. "If that rascally saint were my client, of course I should do my best to whitewash him; but he isn't innocent, and I shouldn't think him so."

"Shall I tell you what will happen? The diamonds will be found in the possession of the real culprit," said Mrs. Sauls.

"Oh, of course they will be found," said George; "as soon as the thief tries to pass them. He'll be afraid to, for weeks yet. I never had any hope that they were in our pious friend's possession. Pooh! he's greedy of praise, and he likes pretty women, in conjunction with long prayers; but I'm bound to own that, if it had been diamonds he was hankering after, he could have had them without the trouble of knocking me on the head."

"Oh—could he? that has not come out in court," said Mrs. Sauls, her sharp old face alight with interest. "You mentioned a locket set with diamonds among the contents of your pocket; but you, neither of you, said that you had had any talk about it."

"It belonged to Mrs. Thorpe originally," said George. "It happened to come into my hands. In fact, I picked it up in a pawn-shop, and tried to return it to her. Her husband wouldn't let her accept it, which was like his insolence; but there was no need for either of us to drag her name into court, and I wasn't going to give all the sweet women who look on at trials the joy of serving up a bit of scandal about that poor lady. They are like French cooks—they can concoct a spicy dish out of next to nothing. Well! what are you cogitating now?"

"You say he likes pretty women," said Mrs. Sauls. "It strikes me he likes one woman uncommonly well. As for his preaching and praying, it has cost him so dear, by all accounts, that, though it may be done in the market-place, I fancy it can hardly be for the praise of men. Cant doesn't court broken bones, as a rule."

"Ah! women are always taken in by that sort," said George. "I thought better of you, mother! Even at your age you are not proof against a preacher."

"My dear, that's no argument," said his mother. "If you take to platitudes about the sexes I have done. Yes, yes! Women have a predilection for parsons and preachers, it's well known. I am seventy years of age and as ugly as sin; but, no doubt, I am sentimental at heart as any bread-and-butter miss, eh? and your remark quite applies. A woman's easily blinded by pious pretences, and a man in love with his neighbour's wife can't hit straight for squinting at her. There's another generality to cap yours! Not at all to the point either, of course. It's a foolish manner of talking."

The old lady spoke with a spice of temper; and George laughed, but he was angry too.

He got up and threw his cigar into the fire. "I am going out for a bit. I daresay I shan't be in for dinner; don't wait, please," said he. "I am sick to death of the chatter about this trial. You can talk it over with Lyddy and the Cohens without my assistance, can't you?"

And he went out, leaving Mrs. Sauls to repent her indiscretion. She lost the greatest pleasure of the week when her son didn't dine with her on Saturday. Her tongue was occasionally a match for his, but she was heavily handicapped by Nature; for, naturally, even so good a son as George did not find in his mother, as she found in him, the chief joy and object of existence! George was not in the least quick-tempered as a rule, however; and their chaff seldom resulted in anything approaching a huff.

Mrs. Sauls sat on the stool of repentance till dinner time, when she drank her best champagne—which was produced only when George was expected—without tasting it, and found no savour in her dinner.

Lyddy, loud and high-coloured, took George's place at the bottom of the table, and "Uncle Benjamin" was pleased. Benjamin Cohen had snubbed George in his nephew's youth; now times were changed, and old Benjamin would have been glad to forget certain by-gones; but, unfortunately, George had an excellent memory; consequently, the uncle liked Lyddy the better of the two, though he entertained the greater respect for his nephew.

They discussed the trial in all its bearings, but Mrs. Sauls sat silent and heavy. She was as great a talker as her son as a rule; but to-night she contributed only one observation during the whole of the dinner. When Benjamin Cohen remarked that he had heard that the defendant's health had been quite broken down by the rough treatment he had received, she observed that she had no opinion of preachers, and that no doubt it served him right.

After dinner, they played cards; and she lost heavily, and took no pleasure in the game. Usually she was keenly interested; though it was an understood thing, that when she won, the stakes were merely nominal, and that when Benjamin won, they were bonâ fide. Mr. Benjamin swept them up very comfortably to-night.

The candles in the heavy gold candlesticks had burnt down pretty low before the game showed any signs of ending. Lyddy played on the grand piano at the further end of the big drawing-room; and her aunt, a faded, gentle, little woman, dozed peacefully in an armchair.

It was close on eleven o'clock when Mrs. Sauls' face visibly brightened; she had heard George's step on the stairs.

He came in and shook hands with his uncle, and kissed his aunt, to whom he was always genuinely kind, and then came and leaned on the back of his mother's chair, and overlooked her cards.

"You are getting shamefully beaten, old lady!" said he. "You can't play without me to advise you. Uncle Benjamin's more than a match for you."

"I played before you were born, and even before you were thought of, my dear," said Mrs. Sauls; but she knew, by the tone of his voice, that George had forgiven the "generality" about neighbours' wives; and she was her cheerful self again.

He continued to stand there, commenting on her play, in a way that irritated his uncle, but delighted his mother, who always loved to have her son near her, and who, presently, became aware that he had some secret cause of elation, and was very unusually excited.

"Have you been winning to-night?" she asked; and he smiled as he stooped over her, and touched the card she should play.

"I've held trumps," he said. "The trumps were diamonds. Ah, you are making a mistake, mother! You should not play hearts; you will give your adversary a chance if you do that. Yes, I have been in luck to-night. I've held all the diamonds, and had the game in my hands. Nothing to do now but to win."

"You didn't give your adversary any chance, I'll be bound," said his uncle.

"No; I never do, sir," said George.

Mrs. Sauls went on winning steadily now, with her son to back her. George's luck seemed to infect her, but Benjamin waxed angry.

Mrs. Sauls sent George away at last, unwillingly. "You are disturbing your uncle, which is not fair. And really, you know, I don't require to be taught how to suck eggs. Go away!" she cried.

"Does it disturb you to be looked at, Uncle Benjamin? I beg your pardon," said George politely; and retreated to the other end of the room to chaff Lyddy, and amuse his gentle little aunt, who never could understand why any one ever disliked dear George or thought him sarcastic.

"There!" said Lyddy yawning, when their guests had departed; "I thought they were never going. Isn't it comical to see what a fuss George always makes over poor Aunt Lyddy? I declare I believe he'll end by marrying that kind of simple, meek woman, though he flirts with the go-ahead ones."

"I wish he would!" said George's mother. "Your Aunt Lyddy is a good woman—a much better woman than I am; though I must own," she added, with an inflection of voice that was very like her son's, "that I believe that's partly because she's too stupid to be anything else. But George would be very kind to a——"

"To a good little fool!" said Lyddy. "I really think he would. Well, are you coming to bed?"

"Presently," said Mrs. Sauls. But when Lyddy had gone, she went down to the smoking room.

"Ah! I thought your curiosity wouldn't keep till the morning!" cried George, when she opened the door.

"My dear! You've found the diamonds! Where are they?"

He stretched out his hand, the locket lying on his palm face upwards. "In my hands," he said.

"And where were they, George?"

"In that saint's!" He laughed, and laid it down on the table. "Mother! you and I were too charitable; we thought he would draw the line at that."

He told her the whole story then, walking up and down the room while he talked. He was very triumphant, and slightly flushed; she could have fancied he had been drinking just enough to elate him, but that George never drank; and, in spite of the triumph, the old woman's heart ached for him.

"You remember I told you that I had mislaid some papers?" he said. "I recollected suddenly that I had left them at the governor's house, so I went back there this evening; I found them. (I shall begin to say I am led by the Spirit soon.) On leaving the house, I came upon that fine old parson from Lupcombe. He wanted to cut me; he thought I had trumped up the whole story about his pet preacher, out of personal spite, I believe. He implied as much in the witness box, and I was determined to have it out with him. Upon my word, mother, though I've small liking for parsons, I like that one; he's a splendid old specimen. Well, the snow came down hard on us and shortened our colloquy. He went on his way, having delivered his mind as boldly as if he were safe in the pulpit, where no man can answer him; and I was just crossing the road, when a runaway cart came tearing along. I saw a woman, with a bundle in her arms, slip as she tried to get out of the way. The roads are in a fearful state; one might skate from here to the gaol; and the drifts of snow were whirling up into our eyes. I caught the horse's bridle. The wheels hadn't gone over the woman, but she was knocked down almost under the brute's hoofs. I had to pick her up. She wasn't much hurt, I fancy; only a good deal shaken, and a little bruised."

He paused for a moment. Something in his voice had revealed to his mother who the woman was.

"You saved the preacher's wife!" she said.

"I felt I ought to apologise for my presumption," said George. "But I really couldn't help it. I—I didn't see who she was till she lay in my arms."

He put his head down on his hands for a second as he stood by the mantelpiece. He could feel her in his arms still in the midst of that whirling snow, her head on his shoulder for once, her eyes closed.

"Tom Thorpe was with her; he was just a few steps in front. He turned round when he heard me shout, and he caught the reins on the other side. I left him to take her home. She is living close to the prison. I think she hadn't time to realise that I had saved her, which was fortunate; for she would possibly have preferred being killed. I had picked up the bundle she was carrying, and had it still in my hand. I considered whether I would run after them and give it to Tom Thorpe; but then I thought I'd send it round by a servant to-night, and not force her to speak to me. Modesty is always my strong point, you know. Besides, though I am not thin-skinned, she has made me understand that,—what was it?—that she'd rather take hot coals in her bare hands, than help from me. So I took the bundle to my rooms, and—(observe the leading of the Spirit again! I could preach a sermon on that subject to the preacher now!)—I called Lucas to do up the things tidily, and take them. There was a jersey, and a woollen shirt, and a cloth cap. I didn't want to touch them. It was Lucas—not I—who found out. The cap had been torn, her bundle had gone under the wheel; it was so torn that the lining was loose. Lucas, bless his tidiness! took it up to brush off the dirt. In brushing it, he felt something between the cloth and the lining. He put in his fingers—he is always curious, but I'll allow that his curiosity was inspired on this occasion—and he pulled out this plum! It had been lying safely perdu for some time. If that pious man's leading spirit hadn't rounded on him and taken to leading me instead, he would have carried those diamonds on his revered head to all his meetings for the next six months—supposing he got off, of which he had a good chance. It would hardly have been safe to get rid of them in England; but, perhaps, he would have had 'a call' to convert the sinners over the Channel. He generally uncovers when he prays, doesn't he? otherwise, I should think the diamonds would have touched him as a very 'direct and sensible blessing,' and would have given great force to his petitions."

"Don't, George!" said Mrs. Sauls quickly. "If the man was a hypocrite, he'll swing for it; but that's no reason why you should blaspheme."

"I? I am in an unusually religious frame of mind," said George. "Aunt Lyddy told me to be thankful to Providence for my preservation just now; and so I am, very. I've got my desire over mine enemy, which is a Biblical source of congratulation! Barnabas Thorpe always says it's the 'Lord' when he takes what he wants. Let me follow that holy man's example; if his 'Lord' has given him into my hand, it would be wicked not to rejoice."

"Do you suppose his wife knew that he had the diamonds?" interrupted Mrs. Sauls.

"No, I don't," said George. "It would be blasphemy to suppose that."

He was walking up and down again, but that question about the preacher's wife sobered him a little; and presently he sat down, playing with her locket in one hand and shading his face with the other.

"And yet I don't know," he said. "She may have known—God knows—no! I think it is the devil knows—what may happen when a woman is bound to such a saint. In any case it's not her fault."

"But she will suffer if he's hanged," said Mrs. Sauls; and George looked up.

"Yes; she will," he said. "That's not my affair. The fool always suffers with the knave, and the innocent with the guilty. I didn't make that excellent universal law. But I am not so moonstruck as to let a rogue off for the sake of a woman who won't touch me with a pair of tongs. Why, mother, what do you take me for? What do you want? I've never known you so unreasonable. Why shouldn't I bring a man to justice who has tried to kill me? Who am I to upset heaven's decrees? Do you want me to compound a felony? I believe you do! I am ashamed of you, old lady!"

"I am a foolish old woman, my boy," said Mrs. Sauls. "Perhaps it's because I am getting feeble and old now, that I can't bear to hear you talk so."

And George suddenly dropped the savagely bantering tone, and sat down on the sofa beside her, and pulled her closer to him. "Nonsense! 'old and feeble!'" he said. "There's not much feebleness about you, mother. I say, you make me feel on a par with my uncle! My foot itches to kick him when I hear him bullying Aunt Lydia. Have I been bullying you?"

"No, my dear. You are quite the best son in all the world, and not in the least like your uncle," said Mrs. Sauls. "Besides, you wouldn't find me so easy to bully as your Aunt Lyddy, though I remember——"

She did not say what she remembered; but George knew well enough.

They both remembered some scenes that had probably helped to make George the man he was, both for good and evil. Isaac Cohen had been a brutal husband, and a tyrannical father, till the day when George discovered that he was big enough to defend himself, and strong enough to prevent his mother from being ill-treated—at any rate, in his presence.

"Don't remember!" said Isaac's son. "My father is best forgotten. I hope I don't remind you of him. If I do, I certainly ought to be heartily ashamed of myself."

It was a bitter thing to say of a father, but then the facts hadn't been sweet; and his mother, at least, knew how much besides bitterness had been developed by them. It was seldom that she referred to those days that were past, but she had touched on them for a purpose now. Her son's love for her had deepened with the necessity of protecting her; in alluding to that, she knew that she was pulling at her strongest hold on him. Certainly she was, as he called her, a clever old woman.

"Perhaps I am unreasonable," she said. "Evidence is against the preacher, and, as you say, he'll be convicted by the jury, not by you. I should rejoice to see the man who tried to kill you on the gallows; but, George, I still believe that that man is innocent. Don't laugh again and talk to me of heaven."

"Well, I won't," said George; "for, in sober earnest, mother, I must say that I think heaven has had precious little to do with the affair from first to last. I am sure the preacher's marriage was concocted in the other place. I should like to ask him what he thinks of personal inspiration when he knows what I've found. But I won't quote his jargon to you if it makes you sick. I allow it was my own luck and promptitude that put into my hand the rope that will throttle him. After all, I've always found myself the only safe thing to trust to!"

"Very well, my son," said Mrs. Sauls. "But, if you respect nothing beyond yourself, you must be careful not to lose that self-respect."

George Sauls looked at her in surprise; his mother seldom spoke so to him; for, with all their apparent frankness to each other, both had a good deal of reserve, partly born of a horror of cant. She felt nervous at having said so much, but he didn't laugh this time.

"My dear mother, you are getting quite miserable; and neither I nor the preacher, even supposing him to be as good as he looks, is worth that," he said kindly. "I believe I've been holding forth like a stage villain; but, after all, I am not meditating any villainies. Some one comes behind me in the dark and tries to murder me; I have the man, who, I believe, did it, arrested, and then a fortunate chance puts clinching proof of his guilt into my hand. Naturally I shall produce it. As it happens, I hated Barnabas Thorpe before; but I assure you that I should act in precisely the same way if there had been no former quarrel between us, and I should be quite right. I am doing nothing unfair; you needn't be unhappy; I can't imagine why you are. I wish you would go to bed, and forget the preacher. I can't think what makes you so soft about him; you've heard of men being hanged before now. Look here, I've got a lot of writing to do to-night, and don't want to have to sit up till the small hours. To do that is very bad for my head, which ought to be of a great deal more importance to you than Barnabas Thorpe's neck. Good-night."

He gave her a kiss as he spoke. She had been very foolish and unlike her ordinary cheerful self to-day; but then he was aware that he too had been rather excited, and his kiss was all the warmer because he had been momentarily angry, and because she had called herself old and feeble. Certainly her tenacity of purpose was not feeble.

When her son stooped to kiss her, she made up her mind to gain her point, and she appealed instinctively to the most vulnerable part of George. He might be hard-headed, like his father, but he possessed something that his father had lacked.

"My boy, you are quite within your rights," she said. "But let me be 'unreasonable and soft' for once, and give me this fancy just because I am your old mother and ask you for it."

"What do you ask?" said George. "If it is anything on the preacher's behalf, please don't ask it; for I don't like refusing you, and you don't at all like being refused."

This was not encouraging, but Mrs. Sauls persisted. There were few things George wouldn't do for her, as she very well knew.

"You are more to me than a hundred preachers," she said. "George, if this man is hanged, I believe from my soul that you'll be sorry for it one day. Oh, I know that you are doing nothing unfair; that you've every right possible to produce those diamonds in court. I tell you, I own I am unreasonable, and a silly old woman to-night; and yet, oh, my dear, the idea haunts me that you will feel his blood on your head, because at the bottom of your heart you hate the man, not because of that blow in the dark, but because he has married the woman you want. Throw the diamonds away. Give them back to Mrs. Thorpe. Let him escape. If he is guilty, he'll suffer in the end, you may be sure. If he is innocent (and since I have seen him I feel convinced that he is), you will be glad."

She looked eagerly at him, but there was not a sign of yielding on George's face.

"I am not afraid of being haunted," he said; "though the preacher is always so illogical that I quite allow it would be highly characteristic of his ghost to try that game on me, if a jury justly convict him. No, mother! Mrs. Thorpe should have kept the diamonds when she had them. She won't get them back now. I hope to see him hang first. If he is innocent, he must be able to explain how the stones got into his possession; if he can explain and won't, he is a fool—to put it mildly—I shan't frustrate justice to save him from the fruits of his folly. I'm not his nurse to prevent the poor dear from cutting his fingers when he plays with edged tools. Why on earth should I?"

"Because I beg it of you as a favour," said Mrs. Sauls. "I don't often try to interfere with you, do I? I do not like begging, even from my son."

"You would have had no need to beg in any other case," said George. And she knew she had failed.

"That you ask it is a very strong reason. Why, mother, it would be strong enough to make me let off any other rascal in the world if he were in my power."

"But you won't let this man off—for my asking?" she said.

"No, I won't," said George. "He robbed me of something I liked better than diamonds—or even than you."

"I'll say no more," said the old woman sadly. "But, my dear, I am sorry."

"Ah, well, if one can't get what one wants, one must want what one can get," said George; and that soothing and virtuous-sounding maxim meant (just then) that, having been denied the satisfaction of love, he was making the most of the satisfaction of hate.

"I generally do make the most of what I can get," he added cheerfully. "It answers very well. Good-night. Don't be sorry for people, mother; it's a mistake, and a great waste of power. Go to sleep comfortably, and don't fret."