"Mrs. Thorpe!" he said. "The world must certainly be coming to an end when you come to me!"

He did not even pretend not to be astonished; he was too clever a man to waste time in futile conventionalities. He had always his wits about him; and he spoke in a tone that expressed neither enmity nor friendliness; a surprise put George instinctively on guard.

"It is in danger of it—for me," said Meg. And then he guessed why she had come; and his face hardened.

"Nothing but the fear of losing what is more than all the world would have brought me. You are right."

"Ah! I won't insult you by sympathy this time," he said. "I remember that mine offends you; but—and I mean no offence, Mrs. Thorpe—I think that you had better not have come. A woman should always keep the refusing on her side; it answers best on the whole."

She had refused his aid with scorn when he had offered it, and now it wasn't to be had for the asking; but he preferred to spare her a fruitless entreaty. Where Margaret was concerned, revenge was not sweet to George. His words were meant for a fair warning (if she would only be wise enough to take it), and Meg understood them so.

"Much the best, when there is any choice," she said. "But there is none."

George looked at her for a moment in silence. The people who lead forlorn hopes never see "any choice".

"Then please sit down," he said; and came round to her corner of the fireplace, and pushed up a chair. She shook her head, and he shrugged his shoulders slightly, and stood facing her again.

"I have come to ask you for something," said Meg. "You gave my locket to me once, and I returned it to you."

"Your husband returned it to me," interpolated George, who stood playing with the china on the mantelpiece.

"With my entire consent," said Meg. "It only meant a dear memory to me then, but I thought it too valuable a gift to take from you. It means my husband's liberty, and probably his life, now; but——"

"Don't go on," said George. "It is of no use; it is not for me, of all men, to hinder natural consequences. You were right before when you told me that nothing should induce you to accept a favour from me. You were perfectly right."

Again it was with an honest desire to save her from a refusal that he spoke; but he felt as if he had struck her when he saw her white face flush.

"Yes, I remember," she said. "I knew that you would remember too. I told you it would be easier to take hot coals in my hands than help from you who injured him—so it would." She stretched out her hands to the fire with an unconsciously dramatic gesture. "So it would! If pain to my body could save his pain, I would do that first. Shall I prove it?"

"No, thanks," said George drily. "I quite believe you. I always have believed you, even when your remarks have not been conducive to my natural vanity. We both meant what we said, I fancy."

"Yes," said Meg bravely. "I did mean it. I meant every word. And you swore that nothing should ever tempt you to try to help me again, and you meant it. And yet I ask you. Give me the diamonds now, for they are the price of his life. Nothing that I could say if I begged on my knees, though I will do that if you like, could be stronger than this. I do remember, and yet I ask you."

He turned his head away, not caring to look at her. Was this Margaret? Ah, yes! No other woman could so have moved him—"I remember—and yet I ask you—even you," was what she meant; she was proud even in her self-abasement.

"You will?" she said.

"No!" he answered gravely. "I am sorry. I warned you not to ask me. One can't say such a 'no' so that it does not give pain, or I would. I don't want to be more of a brute to you than I need. I would say it gently if I could—but I cannot—I mean I will not—give you that."

He twisted his eyeglass cord rapidly round his finger, as she remembered his doing of old, when he was a trifle excited in an argument. Then he made a mistake. He should have left his refusal there; but he did not; he began to justify himself; he could not bear that she should think him worse than he was.

"I should like to say that it is not because of what passed between us outside the governor's house that I refuse your request now," he said. "I am not quite mean enough to revenge myself on you for that—I should not have given the diamonds up in any case."

"Why not?" said Meg.

He shrugged his shoulders again.

"Because I am not quixotic," he said. "You mustn't expect a man to belie his nature. Look here, Mrs. Thorpe. You always knew me to be a fellow with what you and your father called 'low aims,' didn't you? That was what you didn't like about me years ago. Oh, you never said so; and you were too good to despise any one; but you thought me on a different level; and I lost you; and Barnabas Thorpe married you. Very well! I had no right to complain; but, then, you mustn't expect me to be high-minded now."

"If I offended you then——" began Meg in a low voice; but he stopped her.

"No, no. I don't mean that. I wasn't offended. Don't think I am saying this out of spite. I am not. I am only explaining. You were perfectly right, you judged me truly enough. I don't go in for being generous. I never give something for less than nothing. Naturally we both know that if I give you your locket I give you the case;—that is what you mean, isn't it?" He paused a moment, and Meg bowed her head.

"And some men, your father among them, would have let a man who had injured them go for the sake of the woman they—who asked them. I acknowledge that; but I am not of that kind. I have never even pretended to be. You have always understood that before so well," said George a little bitterly, "that you ought in fairness to understand it now."

"But Barnabas never injured you," said Meg, with a feminine begging of the point that brought an unmirthful smile to George's lips.

It was a hard fate that would not allow him to strike his enemy without wounding her. He hated this scene, and he hated his own weakness in hating it.

"You told me that you believed me; and indeed you must know that I am speaking the truth," she cried earnestly, with that instinctive feeling, that we most of us have, of the overpowering force of any fact that we thoroughly believe. "Barnabas could never strike a blow from behind. If you don't know that yourself, believe me for I do know him. Do you think I should be here now if I thought him guilty?"

"I have implicit faith in your word, which is more than I'd say of most men or of any other woman of my acquaintance," said George. "Since you say so, I am certain that you believe him innocent. I don't think that you could lie in any circumstances, certainly not well enough to carry conviction; but—I might say, consequently—you must pardon me if I can't pretend to equal faith in your judgment."

"My judgment is often wrong," she cried. "And yet, for that very reason, you may believe when I say I know him. Who do you think has ever had such cause to know him as I have had? I, who was his wife in name before I understood what love and marriage meant; who threw up everything at his bidding, and lived to recognise that he was not infallible?"

And George was silent. The boldness of this avowal surprised him. Meg, from their first acquaintance, had surprised him at times.

"We made a mistake," she said. "If Barnabas had been one shade less than utterly honest, it would have been an irretrievable mistake." She was thinking of a past despair, of which this man knew nothing, of black depths of water and a wind-swept marsh, and the thought gave her strength now. "You think that I believe in the preacher because I love him? It is not so, for I did not love him. I know that he is honest. What do you suppose would have become of me if he had not been good?" she cried with a shudder. "Should not I have had cause enough to know that?"

And Mr. Sauls felt the force of that shudder.

"I allow it," he said. "You certainly ought to know. We'll grant the preacher honest, if you like;—that is honest according to the gospel of Barnabas Thorpe, which quite passes my humble understanding. Apparently you comprehend it. I'll take it on trust that he never steals diamonds, though he stole a wife; and that he could possibly explain everything, if his very remarkable code of morality did not include the sheltering of criminals. I'll grant you all that,—but it makes no difference. Let him carry out his own principles; far be it from me to prevent him this time. I would have prevented him once, but I was too late."

His voice lost self-restraint, and sounded momentarily hoarse and fierce; then he regained his coolness.

"You are a little illogical," he said. "All that you advance may be absolutely true, Mrs. Thorpe; but it is no reason at all why I should suppress evidence, and give you the diamonds. His innocence is his own affair—not mine."

"Do you expect a woman to be logical when her husband is in danger of being hanged?" said Meg. She was trying to speak quietly, but the terrible strain was telling on her.

"Well, no—I seldom expect it in any circumstances," he answered; and then was ashamed of his words; they sounded like a taunt. "It is more than flesh and blood can stand!" he said suddenly. "You should not have come, Margaret! Don't you know that no one can bear to hear the woman he loves beg for the man who has——"

"Whom she loves!" cried Meg. "Give me his life! If you know what love means, give it to me! I know that you hate him! I know now that you hate him because he married me,—but I love him so. For him? No, I am not begging for him. Do you think that Barnabas would have let me come here to ask favours of you? I think he would rather have been hanged. He shall never know this. I am begging nothing for him. Death must mean gain for him—but for me! Ah, think of it, think of it! for I hardly dare to. Will you leave me desolate, whom you say you love? I could face death; but life without him is so terrible. If I must bear it, I must," said Meg drawing herself up. "Other women have seen their husbands die, and have lived, and so can I—but——" and her voice broke. "Ah, save me from it!" she cried; "you who say you love me. This is more than my own life to me (that I would never beg for). For my sake, for my sake give me this thing, because I ask it of you."

"Because you ask it of me!" said George.

He stared at her, repeating her words almost stupidly. The agony of her entreaty, the sight of her love, fully awake at last, moved him, he hardly knew himself whether most strongly to jealousy or love.

So she was transformed! Well, he had always known it possible, always felt that there was fire behind her ice! Indeed, it was that possibility of passion under her cold pure ideality that had attracted George always. But it was not he, it was Barnabas Thorpe who had awakened it.

"Do you believe that the preacher hasn't injured me?" he cried, with a hot bitterness in his heart. "Oh, yes; he has won, all the way round."

He walked to his desk, unlocked it, and held out the diamonds. "You shall have what you ask," he said; "because you ask it; but never tell any one, Mrs. Thorpe, for I am ashamed of being such a fool."

Then, as she gave a little cry of joy, his fingers closed again on the locket.

"Margaret, Margaret! is his life worth a kiss?" he said. "You shall give me that for it. Ah, God! What a brute I am!" as she shrank back terrified. "There, take it—and go—go quickly." He threw the locket on the table, and turned his back on her. "It may as well still be something for nothing; for, where you are concerned, it always has been," he said. "No; don't stop to thank me. You'd better not. The blessedness of giving isn't at all in my line, you know, and if you stay I shall repent."

And Meg went quickly, with the diamonds in her hand.

The trial ended on the Monday; but the last act of the drama was not so dramatic as had been expected. A rumour had, somehow, got about as to the finding of the jewels. It had been whispered that George Sauls was going to enter the witness box again, and startle every one with a grand coup de thÉÂtre. But nothing of the sort happened. No additional evidence was forthcoming. The judge, in summing up, pointed to the fact of the prosecutor's pockets having been rifled, as indicating that greed, rather than vengeance, had prompted the crime. The prisoner's character for probity was unimpeachable. The doctor's evidence showed that the blow had been given by a sharp-edged instrument. The prisoner had had nothing in his hand when he encountered Mr. Sauls on the marsh by the pool. It had been said that the accused was of a naturally passionate disposition, and that a "violent impulse" might have assailed him, such as had possessed him sixteen years before in the churchyard; but, apparently, he had shown considerable self-control in the interview that had been described. If he was guilty, he was guilty of a deliberate and premeditated assault, and the weapon with which the assault was committed must have been concealed about his person when he came up to the prosecutor. It was a crime apparently at variance with the whole tenor of his life. It was not the sudden yielding to temptation of a passionate and sorely provoked man, but a cowardly and cunningly planned attempt at murder. If Barnabas Thorpe was not guilty the case remained shrouded in mystery. There was absolutely no clue to guide to the discovery of the offender.

The jury were absent half an hour, and returned a verdict for the prisoner. The diamonds that George Sauls had been robbed of were resting safely on Margaret Thorpe's neck, and she kept pressing her hand over them during the judge's summing up. She had not dared to leave them behind her. George Sauls guessed where they were, and laughed rather sardonically to himself as he reflected that "the clue" was not far off.

Well! he gave the "case" as well as the diamonds. He had given Meg a good deal from first to last; and, though he wasn't aware of the fact, he was no loser, seeing that no man can give of his best and yet receive nothing.

Barnabas Thorpe looked immensely surprised when he found himself free. "Do ye mean to say that that's all?" he said. "That I may go where I like? Hasn't Mr. Sauls any more to say? But I know he has."

He did not seem to realise his liberty, even when Tom seized him by the shoulders.

"I believe he's disappointed! I never saw a fellow so determined to be hanged! Never mind, you may come to it yet, Thorpe," said the doctor, who had fairly shouted over the verdict.

"I am more heartily glad than I can say," said Mr. Bagshotte, wringing his hand; "but I should like to see an action for damages brought against Mr. Sauls."

"We'll gi'e him what for, if ever he shows his black face in our part again," said Long John. "The man as tried afore didn't do the job properly."

"What did he mean? Was he lying?" said Barnabas.

"Was he?" said Tom scornfully. "Why, man, ye know he was!" He looked rather anxiously at his brother, half fearing that the captivity and hard usage had touched his brain.

"Where's Margaret?" said Barnabas.

"Waiting for 'ee by the door."

"No, I couldn't wait; I'm here," said Meg behind him. "Barnabas, let us go home."

"Ye'd no business to come into the court again. She turned faint at th' end, when there wasn't any more need to," said Tom. "Well, ye'd ha' gi'en us a pretty time of it, lad! Come along, Margaret, ye are as white as a sheet still."

But Barnabas turned quickly to her. "I'll take care of my lass, if I am really free," he said.

"Let them go together," said the doctor. "Then he'll take it in."

"The blackguards! I'd like to throw 'em all into Newgate for three months wi'out trial," said Tom between his teeth. But whether he meant judge, jury or Mr. Sauls remained uncertain.

When the preacher and Meg left the court together, there was a mingled sound of hissing and cheering. The cheering predominated then, for his own friends were in force; of the hissing he heard more later.

The snowy east wind cut like a knife, blowing in their faces as they came out of the crowded court. Barnabas felt the flakes on his lips, and smiled and drew a deep breath. "How good the snow tastes!" he said. "But draw your hood well over your head, lass. Ay, now I know I am free."

They supped together in Tom's room later; Tom inveighing against the dirtiness, darkness, wickedness and manifold horrors of London, and swearing that he owed his brother "som'ut for dragging him up; he'd never ha' come without he'd been obliged;" but breaking off occasionally into bursts of hilarity, tempered again by the sight of the change in Barnabas;—Barnabas very silent, finding it still somewhat startling to be met by liberty and love, when he had made up his mind to accept imprisonment, and probably death—Meg sitting between them, too thankful for many words.

"I wonder now how Mr. Sauls is feelin'—pretty small I hope," said Tom.

"I doan't understand it," said Barnabas. "He told me i' the prison that he had evidence as would ha' proved me guilty."

It was a sign of how thoroughly the brothers knew each other that he had never considered it necessary to assert his innocence to Tom.

"The deuce he did!" said Tom. "He's found it not so easy as he thought, then. If ever that gentleman gets his deserts, may I be there! Your wife 'ud look t'other way out o' her sense o' duty,—but she'd want to clap her hands; she allowed as much as that."

"Not now," said Meg quickly. "You don't know, Tom. No one ever knows exactly what another man's deserts are." She coloured, fearing to betray what she had promised to keep secret; and Tom laughed.

"Ye may well blush when ye turn devil's advocate," he remarked. "I wonder ye dare stand up for him; only ye've allus got Barnabas to back ye now. Ye weren't so charitably disposed on Saturday," pursued Tom, looking rather hard at her.

"Eh, my lass!" said Barnabas. "Did Tom bully ye so that ye didn't dare say what ye liked when I wasn't by?"

He smiled, and Meg laughed, relieved at the change of subject. "Yes," she said; "Tom beat me with a poker and threw boots at me—whenever he had the chance!"

"That's why she's glad to see ye," said Tom coolly. "She's larnt as a husband may be useful—she missed ye on occasions."

"No, I didn't," said Meg. "When one wants any one much, one doesn't want him 'on occasions'; one wants him every time one draws one's breath."

"Well, he ain't much to boast on, now ye've got him," said Tom. "I say, lad, come back wi' me to-morrow, and shake the dust o' this ant-hill off your feet and pick up your flesh again. Ye'd do to scare the crows at present!"

"I'll get all right again. I'm tougher than ye think," said the preacher. "But I wouldn't be able to do farm work for a bit, and I ain't goin' to live on dad—no, not for a day. It's natural like that he shouldn't ha' been sure o' me, for he never did think much o' me. Happen, if I'd been hanged, he'd ha' thought I desarved it; but I'll not take help from him."

"Did not your father believe in you?" cried Meg. "Oh, Barnabas, I can never understand it—he is so good to me always."

"So he is," said the preacher. "I'm beholden to dad for that anyway."

After supper, when the two men sat together, Tom recurred to that subject.

"It's a shame, lad!" he said gravely. "Dad's been down on you all your life; but it's just the queer twist in his mind; I doan't know as he can rightly help it. Times when ye were a lad, I've thought if I could stand up for ye more; but ye were allus strong enough to stand by yoursel', and he ain't. It's odd how he turns the best side to your wife; she's never even seen him at his worst."

"Poor old dad!" said Barnabas. The firelight played on the brothers' faces, both strongly marked, both bearing the impress of hard lives. The queer strain in the father's character had not turned to weakness in the sons; but, probably, there were traces of it in them too.

"Poor old dad! he sartainly couldn't abide me as a boy, but o' late years I fancied he'd come round quite wonderful. Ye've been right to stick by him; but I fancy there'll be a good many his way o' thinkin'. I'm not fairly cleared, Tom."

"There's more nor I can feel the bottom to," said Tom; "but ye'll live it down."

"Ay, I'll do that, an' I'll live it down here," said the preacher. "Giles 'ull be glad to ha' me back; an' I can keep a roof over Margaret's head an' to spare at that trade; and do my special work as well."

"Do 'ee think your preaching 'ull go down after this?" asked Tom bluntly. "Happen they'll refuse to listen to ye."

"Very like," said Barnabas; "but if one won't be silent, one 'ull be heard—i' th' end. I larnt that in Newgate."

Tom nodded with rather a grim smile. How far he sympathised with his brother's religious views he never said; but he had long ago given up opposing them.

"An' your wife 'ull bide with ye?"

"She'll do as she likes," said the preacher; "but I've small doubt which that 'ull be." And Tom shot a quick glance at his brother, as he knocked the ashes out of his pipe.

"Oh, ay, ye've won her at last," he said. "It's ta'en a near sight o' the gallows to make her like ye, lad; but I fancy it 'ud take a deal more nor that to kill the liking. She's not the soart as 'ull be any trouble to keep. She'll hold to 'ee now through thick and thin; but,—ye might mind, times, that the ways ye walk are rough to a woman's feet; in especial one as was born i' cambric sheets. She'll never remind ye o' that; doan't 'ee quite forget it."

"I doan't," said the preacher. "But the ways must be stiff that lead uphill;" and Tom, looking at his brother's whitened hair and bowed shoulders, was silent.

Barnabas' wife was not likely to have an easy time of it; but, after all, there are a good many things that are more worth living for than easy times. He went back to the farm the next day, carrying with him a small packet, which Meg had charged him to throw unopened into the bottomless depths of the Pixies' Pond. It was not safe for her to keep it, for more reasons than one; and she felt no pang at parting with it. She had flung away more than diamonds for Barnabas! Tom asked no questions, and accepted and carried out the commission with no comments. If he guessed anything, he kept a still tongue on the subject. Barnabas' wife trusted him utterly, and neither he nor the pixies betrayed the trust. This time the diamonds did not return.

Timothy never confessed. After a time, he reappeared, limping ragged and foot-sore over the marshes to his mother's hut, looking over his shoulder as he shambled along. He was nearly starved and very thin, and weak and dirty. His mother received him with unbounded joy. He did not tell her where he had been; only vouchsafed the information that "the preacher had 'lain' the fellow, else he could never have come back".

No one connected him with the attempted murder of Mr. Sauls, but he was less mischievous and less restless than of old. He never understood that Barnabas Thorpe had nearly been hanged in his stead; but he had certainly lost his hatred of the preacher, and even, oddly enough, showed some rudimentary signs of a conscience. Barnabas would possibly have counted that in itself worth going to prison for; and, that being so, Barnabas was hardly, perhaps, to be pitied, though the cloud on his name was never cleared, and though there were always some, generally those who had not fallen under his personal influence, who considered him more knave than fool.

He never betrayed that confession, and the consequences that followed his hearing it did not make him one whit more cautious; but, to the end of his days, he felt "'shamed" when he reflected on his own "cowardliness" in the prison. He believed he might have done more for his Master, if he had not been weighed down during the whole of one afternoon by a most despicable and self-seeking weakness. His devotion to the miserable, his deep sympathy with the fallen, were the greater for that recollection.

It must be owned that from the moment he was certain that he possessed Meg's heart, his hatred of George Sauls ceased to trouble him; that knowledge exorcised that devil more effectually than all his prayers and fastings,—a fact which he put down to his want of faith, but which would rather have amused the doctor; though it is doubtful whether either Dr. Merrill or Barnabas Thorpe had arrived at an entirely just conclusion about the universe in general, and themselves in particular.

Both being honest men in their way, perhaps both had got hold of a splinter of the truth. Perhaps there will be a general piecing one day, when each generation and even individual will bring the precious fragment he has practically believed in, to the "saving of his soul"—materialist and mystic alike!

The last chapter of the story necessarily inclines one to end one's sentences with a query, seeing that an ending must always mean a fresh beginning somehow and somewhere.

The preacher and Margaret moved into the rooms over Giles' shop. He recovered his health to a certain extent; for his constitution, like his will, took a great deal of breaking. His horror of living in a city was lost in his growing desire to fight against the evil of it. Nevertheless, he meant to take a holiday and see the country he loved, when he should be no longer needed. I do not know when that day dawned;—possibly when his body was in its coffin; but one would not like to be sure even of that, for the rest of Heaven must surely mean to such strenuous souls as his, but "increased service".

His mistakes, at any rate, we may hope are over now; his battles fought, his besetting sins burnt away in that fire of the Lord in whom he believed. He followed the light, when he saw it, to the best of his ability, and he fell into bogs and ditches! Was the light therefore a delusion? Was his zeal wasted? I trow not. Our martyrs are troublesome people, troublesome both to themselves and to their generation. They see through curiously coloured glasses, they have a huge capability for tilting at windmills, and tumbling into pitfalls. They spill their own blood freely, and occasionally their brothers' as well; and yet, clinging to their ideal at all costs and to the uttermost, they are still saving salt in the world, witnesses of something that is worth suffering, worth dying—worth even living for. That noble army is drawn from every nation, and its members are of every creed. They are sometimes, alas! persecutors as well as persecuted; but in one point they are alike: their lives and actions preach the gospel of endurance and courage. They lift anew symbols of sacrifice, and so draw men's hearts after them.

George Sauls never met Meg again after the interview which lost him the case. She considered herself under an everlasting debt of gratitude to him; but it was a debt which, unfortunately, could never be cancelled. Gratitude, like friendship, was "not what he wanted". She never did full justice to the nature that was so unlike her own; but then "justice" is a rather rare commodity.

"I didn't know that I had it in me to be such a soft idiot," he said to his mother curtly, when he had told her that the preacher had been acquitted and that she must forget that dream they had had about the finding of diamonds.

Mrs. Sauls looked at him, with the rare tears standing in her eyes. "My dear, the world would have been a worse place for me anyhow, if you had not had any soft spot in your heart," she said.

"Oh d——n my heart! One should be made without one," said George.

And the old lady laughed and shook her head. "It's too good to be damned, my son." And, to herself she added: "And two women can swear to that who've good cause to know".

Of her own blood relations Meg saw little in the years that followed. Her life and theirs were too wide apart for it to be practicable for her to hold both to them and to her husband. Some women might, perhaps, have managed to cling to both; but Meg was not capable of a divided allegiance. She lived and worked for and with Barnabas, giving her strength and heart and soul as entirely and ungrudgingly as ever woman gave, and finding her happiness in the giving. No doubt she found sorrow too, seeing that increased capabilities of joy mean also increased capabilities of grief; but, after all, roses are worth their thorns even in this world.

On the evening of the day following the trial she stood beside the preacher at the window of their room in Stepney. The sun was going down like a red ball, sinking slowly behind the many twisted chimney-pots. Meg looked out on the murky yellow haze, and the crowded street, and in her heart was a great thankfulness.

"I've been thinkin' ower som'ut that Tom said last night. Would ye as lief bide wi' my father a bit till I ha' got things straighter for ye?" said Barnabas.

Meg shook her head. "No, I wouldn't. What has Tom been saying?"

"That my ways are rough for your feet; for that, when all's said and done, ye come of a different kind. Are ye quite content now, Margaret? Ye told me once that we had made a mistake."

Margaret turned to him with a smile that was answer enough. "Contentment is hardly the right state of mind for your wife, is it?" she said. The wistful tenderness in her face deepened. "You will never rest contented while there is a single 'unawakened' person left. I am more than contented now; though I am not so hopeful as you are. Only keep me very close to you, please, if your way is rough."

"What a sight o' houses, an' full—full to the cellars!" said the preacher. Meg knew what he was thinking when she saw his nostrils dilate and his eyes brighten like those of an old war horse when he hears the sound of a drum.

"To-morrow," cried Barnabas, "to-morrow I'll begin again. These last months have gi'en me a lesson. Ay, they've taught me I am too ready by times to serve two masters; that I've thought a deal too much o' my bodily life."

And his wife sighed under cover of her smile. That moral was perhaps hardly the one that most people would have drawn from late events. But a man sees what he has eyes to see, and that only!

"Barnabas," she said, "do you think from the bottom of your heart that your mistakes in life have generally arisen from a time-serving backwardness, from over-prudence and cowardliness?"

After a moment's silence, he answered, with reddening cheek:—

"Ay, lass; those ha' been my sins; I'd not call 'em mistakes. Mistakes one's bound to make, but they doan't matter. So long as a man follows the light as he sees it, he's bound to near it in time, and naught else is worth th' counting; but an' he holds back for fear o' mishaps, and is neither hot nor cold, phew!—the devil himsel' might be 'shamed o' that soart. Happen it takes all hell to warm some into life! For the rest, of course one must pay for blunders; it's a child's part to cry over that. We are apt to make a deal too much fuss about suffering, though we call ourselves the servants o' Him who chose it."

He frowned, looking over the housetops with eyes that saw the inside of Newgate and Jack dying.

"As a man sows, he reaps," he said. "An' there ain't no such thing as escaping payment. One sees that payment in the hospitals and the streets and the prisons. But it's a just law; and a remission of it 'ud mean death, not life. There is none, I fancy, lass, unless the Lord ceases to be merciful."

"Ah," said Meg, "I never know whether I think your creed most stern or most merciful, Barnabas; but, if there is no such thing as escaping payment, then what does the Cross mean?"

"It saves us from our sins!" said the preacher. "The devil tempts us to be cowards through our lusts, through our love o' ease; His Cross is the overcoming o' the fear o' suffering, the banner o' Him who chose and conquered pain."

And she laid her head on his shoulder as they stood together, hoping in her heart that her womanly fears for him might be forgiven, seeing that they could never hold him back. "Ah, you may be right," she said. "At any rate yours is a brave creed, and one fit for a man who loves fighting. But I shall never rise to thinking that 'nothing else matters' so long as one is following the light. Barnabas, that is beyond me! I could pretend I did not mind being hurt," said Meg; "but at the bottom of my soul I should know it was a pretence. I can't understand that!"

"You can't understan' that?" said the man; and he drew her closer to him. "Sweetheart, who was it that said that if she stood with me on the scaffold there would be no such thing as shame for her? That she would find it easy if she might die with me? Was that a pretence?"

"No, no. It was truer than anything else," cried Meg. "But that was for you, and any woman would have felt that if she cared for you. Why, there is not a poor creature who haunts Newgate but would understand that. It is so simple! A sacrifice is no pain when it is for the person one loves. It ceases to be a sacrifice. One doesn't 'count' it."

"I see," said the preacher. "So any woman finds that simple, eh?" He looked at the woman by his side, his truly now, and there crept over his face that tender reverence which a good man gives so freely, and which always half shamed, half touched Margaret.

"Help me, lass," he said; "that I may find it simple too. I am cold at times. I doan't allus practise what I believe. I am a terrible coward, Margaret. Help me, that the fire o' th' Lord may be kindled afresh in me, to the savin' o' many!"

"I think it will be," said Meg, her own eyes kindling. "Oh, Barnabas, it is a difficult world; but, at least, you never tell one to be satisfied with makeshifts, because there is nothing else to be had."

A recollection of her girlhood was in her mind when she spoke.

"God forbid!" said Barnabas Thorpe. "Shall we satisfy our souls with swine's food? Better go hungry than that! That creed is fit for neither man nor woman. It's born o' despair an' ower-softness, an' it means a givin' up o' th' fight, which is a shamefu' thing. Isn't it queer to think o' th' hundreds i' those houses? I'll preach by the river to-morrow. It's good to be free again! One got kind o' sick with feeling eyes always on one by night and day, and no place to breathe alone in."

"Forget Newgate now, dear," said Meg.

"No, I'll not do that," he answered. "One has no business to 'forget' till the day when the coming of the Lord shall set the prisoners free. But we'll begin afresh to-morrow, an' we'll ha' fewer doubts, an' we'll do more."

THE END.

A FEW PRESS OPINIONS
ON
INTO THE HIGHWAYS and HEDGES

Academy.

"This book is so admirably conceived and written that Mr. MontrÉsor's next venture must excite unusual interest."

Speaker.

"This book will undoubtedly rank high amongst the notable novels of 1895."

AthenÆum.

"Whoever wrote 'Into the Highways and Hedges' wrote no common novel. A touch of idealism, of nobility of thought and purpose, mingled with an air of reality and well-chosen expression, are the most notable features of a book that has not the ordinary defects of such qualities. With all its elevation of utterance and spirituality of outlook and insight it is wonderfully free from overstrained or exaggerated matter, and it has glimpses of humour. Most of the characters are vivid, yet there is restraint and sobriety in their treatment."

Daily Telegraph.

"This exceptionally noble and stirring book. Recounted with unflagging verve and vigour, we unhesitatingly say that it has hardly a dull or superfluous page."

New Age.

"A remarkably strong novel. I often thought of George Eliot when reading this book, which I advise every one to read." (Katherine Tynan.)

Manchester Courier.

"Mr. MontrÉsor's next book will be eagerly awaited by all those who make the acquaintance of his first, for a more strikingly original or a stronger novel has not appeared for some time."

World.

"'Into the Highways and Hedges' would have been a remarkable work of fiction at any time; it is phenomenal at this, for it is neither trivial, eccentric, coarse, nor pretentious, but the opposite of all these, and a very fine and lofty conception. The man is wonderfully drawn, realised with a masterly completeness, and the woman is worthy of him. The whole of the story is admirably conceived and sustained. A wonderful book."

Glasgow Herald.

"This is a remarkable and powerful book, which is likely to leave a strong impression of itself upon every intelligent reader. One of the most interesting novels that one has seen for some time."

Manchester Guardian.

"The characters are conceived strongly. Since the days of Dinah Morris there has not, perhaps, been quite so successful a portrait of a man or woman consumed by the passion of humanity. The dialogue throughout the book is excellent."