on his own account, and he gave it to
me to get changed when I went down to
the bankers' to pay in money on the same
afternoon. In the meantime he induced me
to give him two hundred pounds on account,
out of the cash that I, as cashier, had
received during the day. Shortly afterwards
he went away, saying he would receive the
other portion in the morning. I went to
the bankers' that afternoon, cashed the cheque
for five hundred pounds, returned the two
hundred to my cash charge, paid it in to
the credit of the firm, and returned to the
office with the three hundred pounds in my
possession, in bank notes, for young Mr.
Picard when he came in the morning. I
never saw him again, and never shall, in
this world.

As to the cheque—it was a forgery. The
bankers had discovered it later in the evening,
and I was taken into custody, with the bank
notes in my pocket-book, by a Bow Street
officer, acting under Mr. Picard senior's orders.
My wife was not at home. Casting, therefore,
one hurried glance at my poor, unconscious,
sleeping child—a glance in which were
concentrated the love and agony of a lifetime—I
turned my back upon the old house to go
with the officer to the appointed prison.

The next morning, at the preliminary
examination before a magistrate, the charge
was made out. I gave my explanation; but
young Mr. Picard was not to be found, and
unsupported, as I was, by any evidence; with
a string of circumstances so strongly against
me, what could I expect? I was fully
committed, and removed to Newgate to take my
trial at the ensuing sessions.

Prostrated with grief and shame, I passed
the first night in my dismal cell, in stupor
rather than sleep; broken by thoughts of my
lost home. My poor dear child seemed to
me to be removed to an immeasurable
distance—to belong to another world—and even
my cold, passionless wife appeared in warmer
and more wifely colours, and my heart was
softened towards her. I felt as if I had left
her, in the morning, full of health and strength,
and had returned at nightfall to find her
dead. I had gone carefully back through
my past life, recalling opportunities that I
had purposely avoided for reconciliation;
magnifying little tendernesses of hers into
acts of great and loving kindness, and dwelling
with self-reproach upon those bitter hours
when I resented what I thought was cold
indifference.

In the morning I was fully aroused from
my dream to the horrors of my position. I
was innocent in the eyes of Heaven—
innocent in the eyes of the law; but, for all that,
I had met by anticipation the fate of the
commonest felon. I was innocent, at present,
in the eyes of the law; but I was herded
without discrimination with the vilest
outcasts of society. My short diurnal walk was
taken in the common prison-yard with burglars,
pickpockets, and all the varied dress of
crime, and I was thankful when I was not
dogged by the bloody footsteps of the
murderer. Although innocent, at present, in the
eyes of the law, I had to take my share in
administering the internal economy of my
prison. I had to scrub and wash and keep
cleanly a portion of the gaol, lest any physical
taint should come where there was so much
moral pollution. I had to take my turn in
sweeping the yard, that the dainty feet of
the professional thief might not be soiled
with his morning's promenade. Even now,
after the lapse of years, worn down as I am
by sorrow and long suffering, when I think
of the treatment I received while awaiting
my trial, my blood boils.

The first morning, at the visiting half-
hour allowed by the prison regulations, from
twelve to half-past, I was stopped in my
short impatient walk by hearing my name
called by the turnkey: my wife had come to
see me. I went to the grating where stood
many of my fellow-prisoners talking to their
wives and friends, and, making room against
the bars, I brought myself face to face with
Esther. There, outside another barrier,
between which and my own walked the officer
on duty, she stood with her cold, passionless
face looking sterner and paler than usual;
her thin lips firmly compressed, and her keen
grey eyes fixed upon me with a searching,
dubious expression. Thinking of the place
I was in, and the character of my companions,
whose voices, without one tone of sorrow or
remorse, were busy around me; feeling cold,
dirty, and miserable, and looking from all
this upon Esther as she stood there before
me in her Quakerish dress, and neat, clean
respectability; I wavered for a moment in
the belief of my innocence, and felt that
there was an impassable gulf between us,
which my desponding heart told me would
never be bridged over.

"Esther," I said, " has young Mr. Picard
been heard of? Is little Margaret well?
Do my employers really believe me
guilty?"

"Randall," she answered, in a calm, clear
voice, "your own heart must tell you
whether young Mr. Picard will ever be found.
Our child, thank God, is well, and too young
to know the great grief and shame that have
fallen on us. Mr. Dobell has carefully
avoided speaking to me upon the subject of
your suspected crime, but Mr. Picard believes
you guilty."

Though I could not clearly see the expression
of her face, broken up as it was into
isolated features by the double row of
intervening bars, I felt that her eyes were fixed
curiously upon me, and the tone of her voice,
as she said this, told me that I was suspected
—suspected even of crime far deeper than
forgery! A cold shudder passed across my
heart, and the old feeling of antagonism came
back again to harden me.