important and exciting an one to admit of a
moment's unnecessary delay.

For Gilbert, he was not sorry to be for a time
alone. The revulsion of feeling, from the
despondency which he had felt but a short time
since, to the wild, almost confident hope which
he believed he might now venture to entertain,
was so violent that it deprived him for
a time of all power of self-control, and he felt
that it was better just now that he should be
alone.

His heart, too, was full of gratitude, and it
was good to be alone that he might express it,
if only in a few rough words that were almost
inarticulate. Ah, was it possible that there was
hope? Were the days at hand when his Gabrielle
would be restored to him, to be his help-meet
and his dear companion?

In the lonely house, and at that lonely hour
when all was still, Gilbert Penmore sank down
upon his knees, and buried his face in his
hands.

CHAPTER XXIX. AT THE ELEVENTH HOUR.

SHE, whose deliverance out of a great danger
has been the object of all this anxious and
persevering labour, remains meanwhile a close
prisoner within the walls of Newgate, leading a
life of great monotony outwardly, but of many
inward changes of mind as the tide of feeling
ebbs or flows, or hope or fear for the time
predominates in her heart.

Her outward life, it has been said, is
monotonous in the extreme. The hours set apart for
the taking of exercise, for meat and drink, for
seeing those who come to visit her, are all
unvarying day by day. In all these things a
wonderful punctuality and regularity are observed.
Then she receives visits from the prison matron,
the chaplain, from benevolent ladies, and certain
well-meaning but often injudicious enthusiasts,
who all take it for granted, charitably enough,
that she is a guilty woman, and come to urge
her to repent of her crime.

There is one missionary gentleman who is
especially urgent in this matter. He has been
himself a sinner formerly. He has not got a
good face, nor a well-shaped head, nor does he
impress you agreeably. His features speak of
violent passions, and violent struggles, and
violent repentance; for the man is no hypocrite.
He sees nothing but sin and danger in all
directions, and there is little of cheerfulness or
comfort in his tenets. He seems actually to gloat
over the terrors of religion, and to have little
sympathy with its gentler aspects, and even to
take but little pleasure in them. This gentleman
frightens our poor Gabrielle not a little.
He comes to her—naturally timid and self-
mistrustful—with threats and promises of
vengeance. He has a doctrine of assurance, too,
which is terrible; if she does not feel that she is
saved, if she does not feel assured of the fact,
she is lost. Is she converted? Can she lay
her finger on the day and hour of her actual
conversion? If she is not able to do this, she
ought to be. She is not able, and the missionary
gentleman almost chuckles to see how his theory
is borne out. Evidently all her life has been
the life of an unconverted person. This crime
which she has committed—for, of course, in his
estimation, she has committed it—is only part
of such a life as hers has been. He does not
regard the act with any special horror, or look
upon it as worse than all the other things she
has done throughout her wretched, heathen,
unconverted life. All of a piece.

This passionate gentleman prays with her and
for her; entreats her to watch for any feelings of
conversion and assurance which may come into
her heart, and altogether frightens and disturbs
her so much that her husband seeks an interview
with the chaplain of the prison and begs
that his (the chaplain's) may be the only
religious ministrations which his wife receives,
and that on no account she shall be considered
guilty, and looked upon as a murderess,
till she has been proved to be so before the
jury who are to try her. So the passionate
gentleman's visits are brought to an end, and
he carries his violent countenance and violent
doctrines elsewhere, and harasses the poor
prisoner no more.

From some of those ladies who visit her
Gabrielle would have got more comfort had it
not been for that conviction of her guilt with
which they approached her, and which has been
before spoken of. Every word they said was
qualified with this feeling. There was a little
chill over these sinless ladies that could not
be got rid of. There was a mighty gulf
between her and them; a barrier across which
they looked and talked, but which might never
be, by any means, broken down—the barrier of
her guilt.

There was one person certainly whose visits
did bring some consolation to this poor suspected
creature, and was ever looked forward to eagerly.
This was the lady of whom there has been
mention made already, though very little has
been said of her, except that she had been for
many years Gabrielle's governess in the West
Indies, and was almost the only friend she had
in London. The tidings of her pupil's present
misfortune had reached Miss Curtis—which was
the lady's name—and she had lost no time in
hurrying off to see her. Ah, there was real
comfort in having such a friend near her, one
who had known her from a child, who had
known her too long and too well to doubt her
for one single moment. The consternation of this
good lady at finding in what a situation her
dear pupil had, owing to the strangest combination
of circumstances, come to be placed, knew
no bounds. The tears of these two were mingled
together, unregardful of lookers-on, and many
were the long conversations held by them on
this terrible subject, while their ingenuity was
taxed to the very utmost, but taxed in vain, to
try after some reasonable solution of the doubt
which hung over the dead lady's fate, and how
that poison—since it really was by poison that
she died—had come to be administered to her.