Laura, enjoining her, on no account, to let
her box of jewels see the light until we could
get proper advice on the best means of turning
them to account. She listened to these and
other directions with a calmness that
astonished me.

"You shan't say, my dear, that your wife
has helped to make you uneasy by so much
as a word or a look," she whispered to me, as
we left the inn.

And she kept the hard promise implied in
that one short sentence throughout the
journey. Once only did I see her lose her
self-possession. At starting on our way
south, Mrs. Baggs—taking the same
incomprehensible personal offence at my misfortune
which she had previously taken at the doctor's
—upbraided me with my want of confidence
in her, and declared that it was the main
cause of all my present trouble. Laura
turned on her as she was uttering the words
with a look and a warning that silenced her
in an instant:—

"If you say another syllable that isn't
kind to him, you shall find your way back by
yourself!"

The words may not seem of much
importance to others; but I thought, as I
overheard them, that they justified every sacrifice
I had made for my wife's sake.

On our way back, I received from the
runner some explanation of his apparently
unaccountable proceedings in reference to
myself. To go back to the beginning, it
turned out that the first act of the officers, on
their release from the work-room in the red-
brick house, was to institute a careful search
for papers in the doctor's study and bedroom.
Among the other documents that he had not
had time to destroy, was a letter to him from
Laura, which they took from one of the
pockets of his dressing-gown. Finding, from
the report of the men who had followed the
gig, that he had distanced all pursuit, and
having therefore no direct clue to his
whereabouts, they had been obliged to hunt after
him in various directions, on pure speculation.
Laura's letter to her father gave the
address of the house at Crickgelly; and to
this the runner repaired, on the chance of
intercepting or discovering any communications
which the doctor might make to his
daughter, Screw being taken with the officer,
to identify the young lady. After leaving
the last coach, they posted to within a
mile of Crickgelly, and then walked into
the village, in order to excite no special
attention, should the doctor be lurking in the
neighbourhood. The runner had tried
ineffectually to gain admission as a visitor at
Zion Place. After having the door shut on
him, he and Screw had watched the house
and village, and had seen me approach
Number Two. Their suspicions were directly
excited.

Thus far, Screw had not recognised, nor
even observed me; but he immediately
identified me by my voice, while I was parleying
with the stupid servant at the door. The
runner, hearing who I was, reasonably enough
concluded that I must be the recognised
medium of communication between the
Doctor and his daughter, especially when he
found that I was admitted instantly after
calling past the servant to some one inside
the house. Leaving Screw on the watch, he
went to the inn, discovered himself privately
to the landlord, and made sure (in more ways
than one, as I conjectured) of knowing when,
and in what direction, I should leave Crickgelly.
On finding that I was to leave it the
next morning, with Laura and Mrs. Baggs, he
immediately suspected that I was charged
with the duty of taking the daughter to, or
near, the place chosen for the father's retreat;
and had therefore abstained from interfering
prematurely with my movements. Knowing
whither we were bound in the cart, he had
ridden after us, well out of sight, with his
countryman's disguise ready for use in the
saddle-bags. Screw, in case of any mistakes
or mystifications, being left behind on the
watch at Crickgelly. The possibility that I
might be running away with Laura had
suggested itself to him; but he dismissed it as
improbable, first when he saw that Mrs.
Baggs accompanied us, and again, when, on
nearing Scotland, he found that we did not
take the road to Gretna Green. He
acknowledged, in conclusion, that he should have
followed us to Edinburgh, or even to the continent
itself, on the chance of our leading him
to the Doctor's retreat, but for the servant-
girl at the inn, who had listened outside the
door while our brief marriage ceremony was
proceeding, from whom, with great trouble and
delay, he had extracted all the information,
he required. A further loss of half-an-hour's
time had occurred while he was getting the
necessary help to assist him, in the event of
my resisting, or trying to give him the slip,
in making me a prisoner. These small facts
accounted for the hour's respite we had
enjoyed at the inn, and terminated the
runner's narrative of his own proceedings.

On arriving at our destination I was, of
course, immediately taken to the gaol. Laura,
by my advice, engaged a modest lodging in a
suburb of Barkingham. In the days of the
red-brick house, she had seldom been seen in
the town, and she was not at all known by
sight in the suburb. We arranged that she
was to visit me as often as the authorities
would let her. She had no companion, and
wanted none. Mrs. Baggs, who had never
forgiven the rebuke administered to her at
the starting-point of our journey, left us at
the close of it. Her leave-taking was dignified
and pathetic. She kindly informed Laura
that she wished her well, though she could
not conscientiously look upon her as a lawful
married woman; and she begged me (in case
I got off) the next time I met with a
respectable person who was kind to me to