shocked and horrified him. The vulgarities
which characterised her speech, too, made the
thing worse.

"Look at those stones," she continued. "She's
walled up inside them. She'll not get out easily,
will she? I bless these stones, I tell you," she
continued savagely, "because they're so strong
and solid. They'd defy a stronger frame than
hers."

"The woman's mad," thought Vampi to
himself, and the reflection consoled him. He began
to think that she was suffering under some
delusion, and that all he had seen and heard might
thus be accounted for. He remained for a time
watching her. She had ceased to take any notice
of liis presence now, and was again feeling the
stones with her hands, and muttering about their
strength as she had done before.

"Something like a prison this," repeated the
woman.

The conviction of her insanity impressed itself
more than ever upon Vampi's mind as he
observed her, and the horror with which she had
originally inspired him was now changed to
compassion. A cold drizzling rain was beginning to
fall.

"Don't you think you had better go home?"
he asked. "Come, I will walk part of the way
with you, if you like."

"No," she answered, "I shall stop here. At
all events, I would not go with you. You refused
me the assistance that I wanted, and now I wish
to have nothing to do with you. Leave me.
You're one of the faint-hearted ones, that's what
you are."

Cornelius paused for a moment, as if uncertain
how to act. He looked up and down the
street. Then he seemed to have made up his
mind, and went his way up the Old Bailey, in
the direction of Newgate-street.

Cantanker watched him mechanically as he
passed along under the gas-lamps, and she saw
that when he came to where the policemen were
grouped about the prison door, he stopped and
spoke to one of them, and pointed as he did so
to where she was standing. Then she saw him
no more, but observed that the policeman who
had been addressed was advancing towards her
with the leisurely step which belongs to his tribe.
"Come, missus," he said, speaking kindly
enough, "what are you up to?"

The police, and more especially those who
guarded the prison-doors, were, in the eyes of
Jane Cantanker at this time, more angels of
justice than mere men. She was ready to do
anything they bade her.

"Oh, sir," she said, "I'm not doing any
harm. But you'll take care of her, won't you,
and keep her very close."

For her there was no other prisoner in that
jail of Newgate but Gabrielle Penmore.

The man had been told by Cornelius that he
thought there was a poor mad creature hanging
about there, so he humoured her, according to
time-honoured usage, pretending to know what
she meant.

"Oh yes," he said, in a reassuring tone,
"we'll look after her, keep her as snug as a mouse
in a trap."

"That's right," said the woman, drawing in
her breath. "The trap's a strong one."

"Uncommon strong," the man replied.
"Now, suppose you leave it to us, and go home;
why, it's raining fit to drownd any one."

"I'll do anything you wish, sir," said Jane
Cantanker. "That I will."

"Well, then, go home, and get to bed, that's
what you'd better do. It's bad enough for us to
be standing about in the wet that's obliged."

"I'll go home at once," replied the other,
"and I'm sorry you should have to get wet.
Good night, sir."

"Good morning, you mean. Why, it's past
one o'clock." He stood and watched her as she
sped away in the rain. "She's got some muck or
other into her head," he said to himself; "but
she does as she's told, at any rate, which is more
than all of them will."

The policeman had a better-half, or rather
three-quarters, at home.

The neighbourhood was at its quietest. The
traffic in the busy thoroughfare which bounded
the jail on its northern side, had reached its
minimum. Traffic there was there always, but
now and for the next two hours it would be less
than at other times. It was just the hour in
the morning when the City is comparatively
quiet, when the night noises are nearly at an
end, and the morning noises have hardly begun.
The rain, too, helped to empty the streets. It
was not a time for anybody to be out who could
possibly help it.

This one person, then, who has just turned
from Ludgate-hill into the Old Bailey, must,
doubtless, have some pressing reason for passing
this way on such a night, and at such an
hour. He is not very warmly clad, and is
evidently very wet already, and yet, from the
moment of his turning into the thoroughfare
just mentioned, he ceases to hurry himself, but
walks along almost at a leisurely pace, and with
his eyes fixed upon that great frowning mass
of darkness, the prison, which, now that the
rain has fairly set in, looks more forbidding and
ominous than ever.

At last, from slow walking, almost lounging
indeed, so dilatory is his pace, our passenger
presently ceases to advance at all, and, arresting
his progress altogether, stands upon the
edge of the pavement, just where Jane Cantan-
ker stood but a little while before, and gazes
up at the prison walls.

Who is it that comes thus when other people
are sleeping in their warm beds, and takes his
station there outside the doors of Newgate?
Who is it that disregards the bitter cold and
the pouring rain that he may keep watch over
against that dreadful place? His eyes sweep
the enclosure of the jail from side to side, and
from end to end, and as he looks a dimness
comes before them, and presently his lips are
moving, though no audible words pass from
out of them.