It was late that afternoon, and the shades of evening were falling rapidly on the little street, but the happy little party seated round the hospitable board in the front parlour seemed little inclined to break up.

Mr. and Mrs. Jarvis were honest-hearted genuine English folks, with hearts as big as their appetites, and they were as pleased to think they had reunited the eonvict and his wife as they would have been had royalty patronized their show at some country town.

Besides, steeped as they were in the morality of the British peripatetic drama, it seemed to them that things were only in their right course. In the drama all escaped convicts are innocent, and in the drama it is always the duty of the ‘first old woman’ to help the convict to find his sweetheart. And when that sweetheart turned out to be the kind lodger to whom her Shakspeare owed his life, no wonder Mrs. Jarvis declared that Providence had arranged it all with a keen eye to a ‘situation’ and the triumph of persecuted virtue.

Up in her own room Bess had cried and sobbed upon George’s shoulder for a good hour, and then, when all the tears were shed, and the sacred joy of that strange meeting had been duly respected, Mrs. Jarvis came upstairs and insisted that they should come down and have dinner with them. It was a grand dinner indeed. Granny was sent out with a plentiful supply of coin, and returned from the cookshop with a famous dish of hot boiled beef and carrots and at least a dozen slices of ‘spotted dog,’ which were popped into the oven to keep hot while the beef and carrots were being disposed of.

George and Bess had little heart to eat, for to this joy of their sudden meeting was added the bitter knowledge of the circumstances which led to it.

George had told Bess all; how, maddened by his unjust treatment, fearing that she might be ill, perhaps dying, he had determined to make a desperate effort to escape, and how when the opportunity presented itself he had seized it.

Directly the first flush of joy was over Bess grew nervous. Every sound terrified her. She dreaded lest the police might suddenly appear upon the scene. It seemed so cruel that, now they were united after these long years of absence, George should still be a hunted felon, with a price upon his head.

The old showman and his good wife saw how matters lay, and did their best to cheer them. Shakspeare and granny were not in the secret of the circumstances under which George had been found, and they could not understand the nervous little jumps which Bess kept giving when there was a knock next door, or the sound of a cab stopping in the street. George concealed his feelings better than his wife, but he, too, was nervous. They had left the vans and the horses a little way out, in charge of the men, who were to move slowly across country with them to the starting-point for the next tour, and George, though well disguised in a slouch hat and Mr. Jarvis’s long coat, was in an agony of fear as they came by a suburban line of railway to a point where they could take a cab to the door. He felt sure that a description of him had been telegraphed to all the stations, and that there would be plenty of people on the look-out to earn the reward which had doubtless been offered.

He would have been still more nervous had he known that for days a stout gentleman had been hanging about the street looking up at this very house—a stout gentleman, who had recognised Mrs. Smith’s face, and who had also read in the papers an account of a convict’s escape, and had ascertained that this runaway convict was his old lodger, Mr. George Smith.

Mr. Jabez Duck, applying himself diligently to his new business of private inquiry agent, had progressed rapidly in his employer’s favour, and found himself soon very fairly off, with a good salary, liberal journey ‘exes,’ and a house full of lodgers at home, who more than paid his rent. He and Susan occasionally had a little flare up, but as a rule they jogged along very comfortably.

It was in the course of his professional perusal of ‘Lost, Stolen, or Strayed,’ the agony column and the mysterious crime department of the daily press, that Jabez lighted upon the intelligence that his old lodger, George Smith, had escaped and eluded his pursuers.

Jabez had previously by accident recognised Mrs. Smith, as she stood looking out of the window of Shakspeare Jarvis’s room one day, and Jabez said to himself that if George Smith got to London undiscovered he would make his way to where his wife was.

When the days went on and the escaped convict was not heard of, Jabez felt sure that he had got safely through the country and was coming townward. Here was a chance for him to distinguish himself in his business and get his name in all the papers. He might beat the professional detectives at their own game, and show how much cleverer he was than the Scotland Yard folks.

Day after day he watched the little house in Lambeth, and made inquiries round about in a quiet and innocent manner as to whether any one had arrived. He got acquainted with one of the lodgers in the house, and went through the whole programme of manouvres which enables the private inquiry agent to know our business, if he wants to, better than we know it ourselves.

If I am curious about Mr. Jones in the next street, or Mr. Stubbs opposite, and want to know all about him, I have but to get a subscriber to one of the trade protection societies to ‘put an inquiry through’ for me. The process is simple. The inquirer fills up a printed form with the name and address of the person he is curious about, and the nature of information required, and hands it in at the office. In three or four days he gets a reply. One of these replies lies before the writer. It is a gem. ‘No. 316. The person inquired about has lived at his present address two years. Was formerly a publican, but became bankrupt in 1874. Since then has married a second wife, who is said to have money. Attends race meetings, and is addicted to drink. Has been summoned twice for assaulting his present wife. Tradespeople in neighbourhood have difficulty in getting their accounts settled. Has a brother undergoing penal servitude. Further information if required.’

It isn’t pleasant to think that, without our knowledge, we ourselves, gentle reader, may be inquired about half a dozen times a year by these agent gentlemen, and that whatever scandal they may pick up of a tradesmen we have ceased to deal with, or a discharged servant, is duly entered against us to our detriment, without the possibility of our refuting the libellous statement, of which we are in sublime ignorance.

Mr. Jabez gathered his information from the usual sources, but his legal training had taught him always to verify hearsay evidence, and he generally got pretty near the mark. In the present instance he ascertained that Mrs. Smith was still a grass widow, and that no husband had appeared upon the scene.

He was almost giving the ease up as a bad job, when, walking through the street on other business, he looked up at a passing four-wheeler, and just caught sight of a face which caused him to stand still and utter an exclamation of surprise.

It was the face of George Smith, the escaped convict.

In an instant Jabez guessed whither his prey was bound, and he did not take the trouble to follow him. He walked quietly back to his office, settled the business he had in hand, and then went to a detective with whom he occasionally worked, and concocted the plan for George’s arrest.

Jabez told the officer a romantic story, all intended for publication in the daily papers by-and-by, of how he had gone to work to discover the whereabouts of the runaway convict, and then arranged that the detective was to arrest George and take him off, and charge him with being a convict at large, while he telegraphed to the prison authorities, and he and Jabez were to share the reward offered for the capture, Jabez in addition getting the fame for his sagacity and ingenuity. The affair would be well reported, and would give Mr. Duck what he was pleased to call a rare ‘leg up’ in his profession. Who could say but that the authorities might not employ him by-and-by? He would start on his own account on the strength of the advertisement, and be sure of the private patronage of missing-friend and disappeared-daughter hunters.

So it was all arranged, and that afternoon, as the shadows fell and the inmates of the little parlour were sitting round the fire, Detective Johnson, with two men in uniform, came down the street, and reconnoitered the house from the opposite side of the way.

There was only one thing Jabez had forgotten, and that was to give his friend a description of the man.

Johnson remembered it afterwards, and would have gone back and asked whether he was young or old, and what he was like, but there was no time, as the bird might fly when the darkness came on.

Now it happened that at that very moment Shakspeare was flattening his face against the window-pane, and peering down into the street. His quick eyes caught those of the detective fixed upon the house.

‘Hulloh, father!’ cried Shakspeare; ‘look here! Isn’t that the ‘tec that we see so often at the races?’

At the word ‘tec,’ George’s face went deadly pale, and he sprang from his seat.

Old Jarvis looked out, and he took the situation in in a moment.

‘By Jove, yes! He’s watching the house; and there’s two peelers at the corner.’

Bess, with a wild cry, flung her arms around George’s neck.

Old Jarvis hesitated a moment. Then he turned to George.

‘Quick, quick!—this way!’ he said. ‘I may save you yet!’ Hardly knowing what he did, George followed the old showman from the room, and ran upstairs with him.

Bess staggered after him as far as the door, and then fell fainting into the arm? of Mrs. Jarvis.

At that moment a loud knock.

‘Let’em knock,’ shouted Jarvis down the stairs. ‘Don’t open till I tell you.’

The knocking continued. There was a sound of hurried movements in the room above, and Mrs. Jarvis wondered what her husband was doing.

Presently there was a noise of some one going rapidly upstairs, and in a minute or two all was still.

The knocking grew louder and louder, and a curious crowd, attracted by the noise, gathered outside. The policemen had been sent round to the back to watch the garden, lest the bird should attempt to fly that way.

Mrs. Jarvis ran half-way up the stairs.

‘What am I to do!’ she cried. ‘They’ll burst the door in directly, and there’s a crowd half across the street.’

‘Open!’ answered a smothered voice that she could hardly recognise.

Mrs. Jarvis stepped to the door, and opened it.

‘Hoity-toity!’ she exclaimed, putting her arms akimbo; ‘what’s all this noise about? Are you the Taxes, or the Gas, or the Water?’

‘All right, mum,’ said the detective, coming in and shutting the door after him; ‘you’re fly, I see. We want the man who’s here—an escaped convict. Here’s my authority to search the house.’

Mrs. Jarvis looked at the detective’s card, her buxom form effectually blocking up the staircase.

‘Conwick!’ she exclaimed. ‘Why, lawks a mussy, man, whatever should we do with a conwick here?’

‘I don’t want to do anything unpleasant, my good woman,’ answered the detective; ‘so perhaps you’ll stand aside and let me search the house.’

‘Search away, and welcome!’ replied Mrs. Jarvis, moving aside; ‘and if you finds a conwick, let’s have a look at him. I never see one afore.’

The detective went up the stairs two at a time, and commenced to search. A policeman stood at the front door to see no one passed out.

The detective was not very long before he found what he was in search of. He went straight to the top room, which he had ascertained was occupied by the convict’s wife.

He entered cautiously, and looked about him. It was empty.

But he was not content with a superficial glance.

He peered into every corner, and then, stooping down, looked under the bed.

‘I guessed as much,’ he muttered. Then, drawing a revolver from his pocket, he exclaimed, in a loud voice:

‘Now, then, out you come, or I shall shoot.’

Slowly a man crept out, trembling and holding his face aside. He was wrapped in a long coat, buttoned to the chin.

The detective, still holding the revolver in one hand, walked up to him and looked him full in the face.

‘George Heritage,’ he said, ‘I arrest you as an escaped convict.’

‘I am not George Heritage,’ said the man in a low voice.

‘You’re not George Heritage, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘Well, I’ll take you on spec. If you’re not the man, What did you hide under that bed for, and what are you doing in Mrs. Smith’s room, eh?’

‘I don’t know,’ answered the man huskily.

‘Ah, but I do,’ exclaimed the detective, suddenly seizing the trembling wretch. ‘Come, let’s slip the bracelets on’ In the struggle, the long coat was torn aside. ‘Ah, you’re not the man, aren’t you? That’s good! I thought I should bowl you out.’

There could be no doubt that this was the right man. Underneath the long coat he wore the prison garb of the convict.

He went quietly enough then. The police kept the door while he was put into a cab, and then they jumped in too, and off went the party to the police station.

The scene in the little parlour was heartrending.

Bess lay in a dead faint on the sofa, Mrs. Jarvis slapping her hands and bathing her face to bring her to, and Shakspeare, white as death, crying in a corner.

Presently there was the sound of footsteps creeping cautiously down the stairs, and the next minute a man, his face ashy white, stole into the room. Bess opened her eyes and gave a loud hysterical cry.

The next moment her head was on the man’s breast, and her lips were moving in thankfulness to heaven.

It was George.

The good showman had dressed himself in the convict’s clothes, which they had brought with them in the box, and the detective, who knew nothing except that he was an escaped convict, and had no knowledge of his age or appearance, had been caught in the trap.

George had climbed through the trap-door that led to the roof, and lain concealed till the officers had gone.

‘We mustn’t stay here a minute,’ he cried, when Bess had recovered. ‘The trick will be found out directly he gets to the station, and they’ll be back here directly. I must go.’

‘Not alone, George,’ cried Bess; ‘not alone. Let us be together while we can. Oh, George, away from you now I should die. Let me share your danger! Let me come with you!’

It was in vain that George pleaded.

Bess would not hear of it. She would wander forth with him. She should know his fate then. The uncertainty would kill her.

In a few minutes, well wrapped up with scarves and shawls, which the good-hearted Mrs. Jarvis insisted upon their taking, and with five sovereigns which she thrust into Bess’s hand as they were going, the convict and his wife stole cautiously out of the house, and harried away, intending to make for the outskirts, and trust to Providence for some means of leaving the country undetected.

Bess wore a deep veil, and George, at Mrs. Jarvis’s suggestion, bought a pair of eye-protectors, and wore his scarf over his mouth, as though he had a bad cold. Thus disguised, and dressed in the loose, ill-fitting suit Mr. Jarvis had lent him in the morning, there was every possible chance of their eluding pursuit with ordinary caution.

Shakspeare came up to the door as they were leaving, and put his arm round Bess’s neck and kissed her, and bade her goodbye.

He knew her story now, and why she cried over those letters.

‘I wish I was as sure o’ heaven as I am o’ that young fellow’s hinnocence,’ exclaimed Mrs. Jarvis, as she tried to soothe Shakspeare, who was quite upset by his nurse’s tragic departure.

‘Innocent!’ exclaimed Shakspeare. ‘Do you think she’d love him if he wasn’t? Ah, if I was only strong again, and a bit older, I’d soon prove it.’

‘Don’t you fret, my boy,’ answered Mrs. Jarvis. ‘It’ll all come right yet, like it does in the dramas. You mark my words. Wirtue’s always triumphant in the last act, and I shouldn’t be at all surprised if that act ain’t the next in this here drama o’ “The Conwick’s Wife,” though what’ll happen to your poor father as is playing the low-comedy business in it just now, Goodness only knows!’