Mr. Sauls returned to town, looking a great deal the worse for his expedition into the wilds of L——shire.

Had he followed his natural inclination, he would have held his tongue on the subject of the sensational episode that had led to the preacher's arrest; but, seeing that the tale must become public property, he took the initiative himself, spreading the version he wished to be popular.

Mr. Sauls' deserved success in life had always been largely owing to the fact that he never hesitated to throw a sprat overboard in order to catch a mackerel. Many people see all the advantages of this proceeding clearly enough, but haven't courage to sacrifice the sprat; he had.

He was determined on two points, apparently a little difficult of combination: he was determined to punish his assailant, and, at the same time, to keep Margaret's name out of the affair. He would rather lose his case than drag her into it—which was saying a great deal.

He would have preferred, for obvious reasons, that the story about Lydia Tremnell should remain in merciful obscurity; but, nevertheless, he brought it to the light of day without flinching; for he knew that, in laying the stress on that quarrel about the woman who was dead, he prevented the suspicion that the hot words between himself and Barnabas Thorpe had had connection with the woman who was alive.

It cost him some vexation of spirit; but, for Meg's sake, he threw the sprat, and threw it boldly.

Mr. Sauls had fallen low in Meg's estimation. She would have been either more or less than human if she could have, at the same time, sided with the preacher, and seen the standpoint of the preacher's enemy. And yet, if "a man's love" is indeed "the measure of his fitness for good company here or elsewhere," Mr. Sauls was, perhaps, worthy of a better place than she guessed.

He had been lunching with the governor of the prison one morning, and had left that gentleman's house with a bad headache (for he still felt the effects of the blow), and in no very excellent humour.

For the last month he had been endeavouring to put the image of the preacher's wife out of his head; and few things are more trying to both nerves and temper than the constant struggle to prevent a recurring thought. The disembodied presence haunts the more when we abstain from clothing it with words, and it usually has its revenge. George "forgot" Mrs. Thorpe by a most constant and unrelaxing effort.

He pulled some papers out of his pocket, meaning to read them while he walked; he could have sworn he was deeply engrossed in them, and that he was thinking of anything rather than of Margaret; and yet, among the thousand voices of that busy street, curiously enough hers reached his ear.

He had walked only two yards from the door of the governor's house. He hesitated for a second, turned round, and retraced his steps. Margaret was on the threshold, talking to the governor's servant.

"Did that brute keep her hanging about the prison? If so, he deserved a worse fate than the gallows," thought George.

"You should have gone round to the back. What business have you here?" said the footman. George could not catch her reply, but her manner had apparently overawed the man, who was evidently wavering between insolence and respect.

"Oh, if your business is with the governor—I'll take your card in and inquire—ma'am."

The "ma'am" was said rather doubtfully, Meg's clothes being shabby.

"I've no card," said she. "Please tell the governor that I should be much obliged if he would kindly see me. I am the wife of one of the prisoners in the middle yard, and——"

"Oh, off with you!" cried the footman, his respect vanishing. "The governor would have enough to do if he saw every blackguard's wife that came a-begging!" And he slammed the door in her face.

Margaret put her hand on the bell as if half inclined to make another attempt; then apparently came to the conclusion that it would be of no avail, and, with a sigh, turned away.

She saw Mr. Sauls when she descended the steps, and would have passed him without a sign, had he not been assailed by a dogged unreasonable determination to force her to recognise him.

"You know me, Mrs. Thorpe," he said. His voice sounded a little defiant.

Meg's eyes rested coldly on him. "I know you," she answered gravely.

George reddened. It was the first and last time in his life that a snub had made him blush.

"But you are too angry to acknowledge me? Well! of course, that is natural," he said. "Naturally you cannot forgive me for being knocked on the head by the preacher. I hardly supposed that you would. A woman's justice is apt to be hard on the sinned against—when the sinner is her husband. But I—not being a woman—do not quite relish seeing you refused anything. I'll help you, if I can. The governor is a friend of mine; I will get you admittance if you like."

"No, thank you," said Margaret. George laughed rather bitterly.

"Are you too proud to accept my help? But you should never refuse a good offer, even from an enemy." Then his tone changed, for the sight of her tired face softened him.

"But I am not your enemy, Margaret—Mrs. Thorpe, I mean. You will not be just to me, that is not to be expected! but you can be generous. Let me do this thing for you—in all good faith!"

He held out his hand, but Meg drew back angrily. How durst he repeat this lie about Barnabas in one breath, and in the next offer to help her? he help her!

"Ah, you hate me too much? But you are very foolish. You are making a mistake," he began; then stopped short, struck dumb by the flash of indignant scorn in her eyes.

"I do not hate you, who swear falsehoods about my husband," she said. "One must have a little respect before one hates! I could not accept any favour from you. It would be easier," said Meg, determined that he should press her no more, and clothing her feeling in the most forcible words she could utter, "it would be easier to take hot burning coals in my bare hands than to take any help from you now."

George Sauls bit his lip and drew back a step. He wondered why this woman's words had such power to hurt him. Then he pulled himself together, and lifted his hat to her.

"Thanks—that was quite plain enough," he said. "I must really have been very dense to have required that, mustn't I? The Psalmist's hot coals were reserved for his enemies' heads, not for their hands, Mrs. Thorpe—but that's a trifle, and I won't press the commodity on you. I most humbly regret having offered my assistance, and can only give you my word that nothing on earth shall ever induce me to attempt such a thing again. Apparently you don't think that my oaths are to be trusted, as a rule; but you may believe in that one."

And Mrs. Thorpe certainly did believe in it.

She was surprised at her own anger; she hardly knew herself in these days. Her indignation was still hot when she reached the tiny room in which she lived, but by that time it had become tinged with anxiety. She feared she had made matters worse for Barnabas by still further embittering his enemy. Yet she could not have let Mr. Sauls help her!

Fortunately, her hands were full of work; she had little time for meditation. She had been seized with a sudden inspiration to take up again one of the few accomplishments of her girlhood, and her efforts had been crowned with unexpected success. She had been clever at modelling and colouring wax fruit; and the sight of her old tools, which had somehow come into Laura's possession, had suggested a possible means of making money.

The sum that her father had left her would have paid for her board and lodging, but she saved every penny she could for the preacher's defence.

She worked hard, allowing herself little rest, and going out only to the prison grating, or for actual necessities. Her room was at the very top of a tall narrow house close to the gaol. Tom had left her there with many misgivings on his part, but with no apparent sinking of courage on hers. She wrote occasionally to him and to her father-in-law, and her letters were always cheerful. "I am taking care of myself beautifully. I am learning all sorts of things," she wrote.

The last sentence was very true. Meg learnt many things during those long months of waiting for the assizes.

She became a familiar figure in the "prison crowd." Most of the habituÉs of the outer yard knew her by sight, and many of them knew her story as well (though she could not imagine how it had got about), and they would stare at the "lydy," with amused and generally very kindly curiosity.

At first, the rough crowd rather alarmed her. In the midst of this mighty city, on which she looked from her skylight window, she felt the sense of isolation more deeply than on any mountain top.

For some weeks she did not speak to any one when on her way to or from the gaol; but, by degrees, her sympathy went out to the women who, like herself, were waiting anxiously.

On the first occasion when Barnabas failed to come to the grating, she had, as we have seen, made a fruitless attempt to get into the ward by an appeal to headquarters; but a second failure increased her uneasiness. She was turning from the bars disheartened, when a scrap of paper was thrust into her hand by the girl next her, who remarked by the way: "You weren't 'alf spry, lydy. You'd never 'ave got it if it 'adn't been for my Bill and me."

The scrap had been wrapped round a bone, and dexterously thrown through the bars. The writing was the preacher's, but so shaky that Meg found it barely legible.

"Ye've no call to be scared, my lass. I've had a bit of a fight, but am all right. Only my face is a sight, and I'd not have you startled by it, so I've kept away—and don't you come for a week or two.

"Barnabas."

The note brought relief to Meg, who had feared he must be very ill. It was like him to be so afraid of "scaring" her by the sight of bruises: since the day she had come back to him, her husband's fear of frightening her had always been on the alert.

She thanked the girl warmly, who, thereupon, confided to the "lydy" that she was "down on her luck".

She was the same very young so-called "wife" who had attracted Meg's attention on the first visit to Newgate.

She was crying because she had no offering for "Bill". She had never before failed to bring something with her on visiting day. Bill, indeed, lived a great deal better than his poor faithful little pal did, and on the fat of the land. "Sally" kept him supplied in beer, tobacco, and even meat (though she habitually went hungry herself), and he took his detention very comfortably.

Meg offered half the contents of her slender purse for the further delectation of Bill, thereby making to herself friends of the mammon of unrighteousness. She gained an immense amount of information, and got her note "passed in"; but she also heard details of the row in the prison that made her sick at heart.

"But Bill says not one of 'em 'ull touch 'im now," the girl declared. "He says he wouldn't 'imself, not if he was paid for it, and the preacher bound 'and and foot; he says it give 'im a turn to see the preacher stand up to 'em agin, when they'd handled him so afore that he was still as weak as a cat. It seemed as if there must be some one behind backing 'im, it were so unnatural like; and it turned Bill all of a tremble, like as if it was something else than a man. His voice wasn't above a whisper 'cos he were so feeble, but they just 'eld their breath to listen to 'im—it's queer, ain't it?"

Meg was trembling too.

"Whose voice? the preacher's? but he is so strong," she said. "What did they do to him?"

"They got 'im down and kicked 'im," said the girl. "You see he'd riled 'em, and there's a good many of 'em in the yard, and it's just the way men's made," added Sally leniently. "If they feel they've got some one under, they just must jump on 'em. I b'lieve they can't 'elp it—and 'is ribs got broke. Lor', don't look so! he's up again anyway, and 'as got the upper 'and of 'em all too! and I'll teach you to make 'im a deal more comfortable than I 'spect you've known how."

But, alas! Meg's preacher would have no "extra" comforts, and sternly forbade the "passing in" of food to himself. The gaol allowance was enough to live on, he said, and his lass must keep her money.

Perhaps his abstention added to the awe of him in which he held Newgate, voluntary poverty having always been a mighty power in the world, and especially respected by free livers.

Then came a day when Meg found "Bill's girl" shrieking and stamping with a wild abandonment of grief that had something terribly inhuman in its utter absence of control.

Bill had been put in irons for a playful assault on a fellow-prisoner with a hot poker, and Sally had bitten the gatekeeper because he wouldn't let her in.

"She doesn't know what she's doing; she's quite mad with passion and trouble," said Meg pitifully. And she put her arms round "Bill's girl," and pulled her away, and took her home with her and gave her some tea and buns, and consoled her with startling success; for the access of grief being past, Sally's spirits swung to the other extreme, with the wonderful rapidity of her highly emotional class.

Meg had not been the preacher's companion for months without imbibing some knowledge of what she had to deal with. Her heart sank rather; but for his sake who never in his life turned from any possibility of helping any one, she did her best for the girl.

It happened after that—she could hardly have told how—that, week by week, she learned more of the women who haunted Newgate.

There was nothing in her room worth stealing, and she had little to give; but "Bill's girl" liked to come late in the evening and sit by watching Meg model, and listening while she sang, for Meg preferred singing to talking.

"Let me stay up here, for I don't want to keep company with any other while Bill's laid by," she said once. "I ain't as bad as some."

So she stayed—and she was not the only one.

The small room would be full sometimes. "But at least there are fewer of them in the streets," Meg said to herself.

She was often struck by her visitors' generosity. They were always ready to give away their last sixpence for the "boys in quod". She pitied them with a pity that made her heart ache.

She seldom preached; and yet, to some of them, the thought of her was a restraining power, a something holy, and not one of them would fight or even swear in her presence.

She took pains to keep her room tidy, but generally bought her food ready cooked, which, if extravagant in one way, saved her time and strength. If Barnabas would have allowed it, she would have lived on buns and tea, and supplied him with meat; but, on that point he remained firm.

So the weeks went by, and the days grew shorter and colder. Meg was determined to be very cheerful, since he had let her stay in London, and would not allow that she felt either cold or depression. She would sit on her bed with her feet tucked under her to keep them tolerably warm, and would thaw her fingers at her candle; but she was anxious that Barnabas should know how happily she was getting on.

There is so little profit in being cheerful for one's own benefit; and she begged hard to see him on the next visiting day; when, alas, in spite of his warnings, she was shocked.

"My dear! I didn't mean ye to ha' come this week,—only, when ye said ye wanted to, I couldn't say no to 'ee," he said. "But ye know, though it ain't at all becoming to ha' one's face divided wi' sticking plaster, it's not dangerous! Come, little lass, Dr. Merrill told me as I was enough to scare a child into a fit, but I said as my wife wasn't a baby."

"It's not that," said Meg, trying to smile. "I shouldn't care in the least what your face looked like; but——Oh, Barnabas, how they must have hurt you!"

It was his evident weakness, the want of strength even in the sound of his voice, and the sight of his hand trembling, that shook her.

"I hope they'll get all they deserve!" cried Meg.

"Hush! Ye doan't know," said the preacher. "Ye doan't know what's been against them, Margaret. If only I can make the moast o' this chance. Why, my lass, ye needn't be so sorry ower a few bruises. I never was much averse to a fight, an', happen, I gave some too! an' I didn't feel aught so long as I was fighting neither; it was only 'comin to' was a bit painful. Now we've had enough o' that, it ain't worth it. Talk to me about yoursel'!"

And Meg, with an effort, did as he bid her. It was a short interview, for he really wasn't fit to stand, and she found it hard work to talk of herself when she was longing to hear about him. But Barnabas had no desire to tell his wife too much about the inside of Newgate. Why should he give her bad dreams?

Meg told him of her encounter with George Sauls, and about the wonderful prices she had got for her wax fruit, of which she was rather proud, and about "Bill's girl".

"But if you were there, you'd know better what to say to them," she cried. "I want to ask you constantly."

"Poor little lass! Ye've not got Tom either, now," said Barnabas. "Nor dad, who, I believe, allus suited ye best of us all; but I think ye do finely, Margaret."

And Meg went back to finish some flowers and take them to the shop that always received them, and came home with the money in her hand, and sang with her very odd "class" in the evening, and sat up to write to her husband's relatives, all the time with the lump in her throat, that the sight of those "few bruises" had brought.

She began to tell Tom how ill the preacher looked, then tore the letter up, and rewrote it.

"He can do nothing, and it's a shame to make him anxious too," she reflected. "Why should I? I wish Barnabas were here!"

She had missed his constant care and protection before; but to-night she jumped up restlessly, unable to sit still, and walked up and down the room, filled with horrible visions of the scene in the yard when the men the preacher had "riled" had pulled him down among them.

Barnabas had made her promise that she wouldn't think "overmuch" of that; and she tried to put the thought away again.

"Ye must forget it! I'm sorry ye were told," he had said. "I'd not have your thoughts o' me hurt you, my lass. Will 'ee be a bit glad to have me to do for ye again, eh?"

Would she? All at once Meg fell on her knees with the rush of a new longing for him sweeping over her with unbearable strength.

"Barnabas, it's you I want—at last—I do want you!" she cried aloud. "Not what you do, but you yourself! Oh, it does hurt one to want like this! I want your arms round me, and your voice quite close to me. I want you so!"

She rose, frightened at the strength of the feeling that had, as it were, laid hands on her, and went to bed quickly in the dark.

It had come at last, the love that had been so long in coming! But it was no sweet boy Cupid wreathed in spring flowers, but rather an armed warrior who took at last what most maids give blithely in the natural time for courting. Was Nature, who never forgives nor forgets an insult, indemnifying herself for the very unnatural way in which Meg and the preacher had put their "earthly affections" out of the reckoning when they married? Ah, well, she had her revenge, as she always has. "How it hurts one!" Meg cried again. But Barnabas had known what that ache meant for nigh two years.

Was it too late now? No; God could not be so cruel. Barnabas would call that blasphemy. He never said, "God is cruel," whatever happened. Whatever happened? but why was she so terrified to-night? He would be set free, and nothing would happen. She would go to sleep and forget.

She did sleep, after a time, and dreamed of a stake with Barnabas tied to it, like an early "Christian martyr" in Foxe's Book, which she had studied when a child in Uncle Russelthorpe's library.

George Sauls was in the guise of an executioner, and kept heaping live coals on the preacher's head with one hand, while he held her back with the other, saying: "Apparently you don't think my swearing amounts to much, Mrs. Thorpe; but I hope you believe in that".

The horror she felt woke her (one has no sense of humour in a dream). She had slept only five minutes, though it had seemed hours. She could not bear to shut her eyes, and encounter that nightmare again. She lighted her candle, and, sitting up in bed, went on with her modelling, till daylight, which happily costs nothing, began to lighten the room.

Then she opened her window and looked out. Traffic was already stirring in the street below, she could see dimly the outline of the gaol through the London mist. The air was raw, but the horror that had possessed her fled with the darkness. With the breaking of the day Meg knew that she had entered into a new kingdom.