reproaching me, I dare say, but it is not
worthwhile. If you make, no use of this, you will
have time to reproach me as much as you like.
If you do make use of it, reproach is past, with
time and life. Have you decided?"

"No," he said; " give it to me. If I use it,
it must be very soon—- if not, never."

She laid the phial on the bench beside him,
and he took it up, and placed it in his breastpocket.
She did not touch him, but when she
had laid the phial down, stepped back, and
leaned against the door.

"Is there anything you want to know—-
anything I can tell you?" she asked. " Again, my
time is very short."

"No," he said; " if I make up my mind to
go through this, I shall know all I want; if I
don't, I need not know anything."

"Just so," she said, quietly. He looked on
the ground, she looked at him.

"Harriet," he said, suddenly, " I am sorry,
I——"

"Hush," she said, flushing scarlet for one
brief moment, and putting out her hand. " No
more. All is over, and done with. The past
is dead, and I am dead with it. Not a word
of me."

"But if—- if——" he touched his coat-pocket.
" I must first know what is to become of you."

"Must you?" she said, and the faintest
possible alteration came in her voice —- a little, little
softening, and a slight touch of surprise. " I
think you might have known that I shall live
until I know you are no longer living."

"Sorry to interrupt you, ma'am," said the
policeman who had brought Harriet to the cell,
unlocking the door with sharp suddenness—-
"very sorry, I'm sure; but—— "

"I am quite ready," said Harriet; and, as
Routh started up, she turned, and was outside
the door in an instant. Two policemen were in
the passage; at the door through which she
had been led from the court, Routh's solicitor
was standing. He took her arm in his, and
brought her away through a private entrance.
They did not speak till she was in the street,
where she saw, at a little distance, a crowd
collected to watch the exit of the prison van.
He called a cab.

"Where to?"

"My house."

"I will go with you."

"No, thank you. Indeed, I would rather go
alone."

"I shall see you this evening."

She bent her head in reply.

When she was seated in the cab she put out
her hand to him, and as she leaned forward he
saw her awful face.

"God help you, Mrs. Routh," he said, with
intense pity. Then she said, in a clear low
voice, whose tone he remembers, as he remembers
the face, these words:

"There is no God. If there were, there
could be no such men as he, and no such
women as I."

When she was a short distance from the
police-court, and beyond the solicitor's sight,
she called to the driver from the window that
she had changed her purpose, and desired to
be set down at St. Paul's Churchyard.

The arrival of the prison van at Newgate
excited the usual sensation which it produces
among the public who congregate in the
neighbourhood of the prison to see it discharge its
wretched contents. The majority of this crowd
were, as usual, of the dangerous classes, and it
would have afforded matter of speculation to the
curious in such things to look at their faces and
calculate, according to the indices there given,
how many of the number would one day take a
personal part in a spectacle similar to that at
which they were gazing with curiosity, which
renewed itself daily. Oil this occasion the
sentiment prevalent on the outside of the grim
fortress of crime was shared in an unusual
degree by the officials, and general, not criminal,
inhabitants. Not that a supposed murderer's
arrival was any novelty at Newgate, but that
the supposed murderer in the present instance
was not of the class among which society
ordinarily recruits its murderers, and the
circumstances both of the crime and of its discovery
were exceptional. Thus, when the gate by
which the prisoners were to be admitted
unclosed, the yard was full of spectators.

Four prisoners were committed that day: a
burglar and his assistant; a merchant's clerk
who had managed a forgery so remarkably
cleverly that it needed only not to have been found
out, to have been a stroke of brilliant genius;
and Stewart Routh. The door was opened, the
group of spectators gathered around. First
the burglar, a wiry little man, more like the
tailor of real life than the conventional hero
of the centre-bit and the jemmy. Next, his
assistant, an individual of jovial appearance,
tempered with responsibility, like a popular
president of school feasts, or the leader of a village
choir. Thirdly, the forger, remarkable for
nothing in his appearance except its abjectness of
fright and bewilderment. These had emerged
from the darksome recesses of the hideous caravan,
the first and no slight instalment of their
punishment, and had been received with
comparative indifference. A passing glance was all
that was accorded to them by the spectators
waiting the appearance of the " gentleman"
who was in such very serious " trouble."

But the gentleman did not follow his tempo-
rary associates, though the policeman in attendance
held the door open, and called to him to
"come on." Then he stepped into the van
and up to the compartment in which Routh had
been placed. After an elapse of a full minute
he emerged, and addressing the lookers-on
generally, he said:

"There's something queer the matter with
him, and I think he's dead!"

A stir and confusion among the crowd, and
the governor called for. A matter of fact turnkey
advances, saying, in a business-like tone:

"Haul him out, and let's see."