Just then a warder approached, and to Burnley’s surprise, who did not see him coming, Monckton said, gently, “And therefore, my poor fellow, do just consider that you have broken the law, and the warders are only doing their duty and earning their bread, and if you were a warder to-morrow, you’d have to do just what they do.”

“Ay,” said the warder, in passing, “you may lecture the bloke, but you will not make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.”

That was true, but nevertheless the smooth villain Monckton obtained a great ascendency over this rough, shock-headed ruffian Burnley, and he got into no more scrapes.  He finished his two sentences, and left before Monckton.  This precious pair revealed to each other certain passages in their beautiful lives.  Monckton’s were only half-confidences, but Burnley told Monckton he had been concerned with others in a burglary at Stockton, and also in the death of an overseer in a mine in Wales, and gave the particulars with a sort of quaking gusto, and washing his hands nervously in the tainted air all the time.  To be sure the overseer had earned his fate; he had himself been guilty of a crime—­he had been true to his employer.

The grateful Burnley left Portland at last, and promised faithfully to send word to a certain friend of Monckton’s, in London, where he was, and what he was doing.  Meantime he begged his way northward from Portland, for the southern provinces were a dead letter to him.

Monckton’s wife wrote to him as often as the rules of the jail permitted, and her letters were full of affection, and of hope that their separation would be shortened.  She went into all the details of her life, and it was now a creditable one.  Young women are educated practically in Germany; and Lucy was not only a good scholar, and almost a linguist, but excellent at all needlework, and, better still, could cut dresses and other garments in the best possible style.  After one or two inferior places, she got a situation with an English countess; and from that time she was passed as a treasure from one member of the aristocracy to another, and received high stipends, and presents of at least equal value.  Being a German, she put by money, and let her husband know it.  But in the seventh year of her enforced widowhood her letters began to undergo subtle changes, one after another.

First there were little exhibitions of impatience.  Then there were signs of languor and a diminution of gush.

Then there were stronger protestations of affection than ever.

Then there were mixed with these protestations queries whether the truest affection was not that which provided for the interests of the beloved person.

Then in the eighth year of Monckton’s imprisonment she added to remarks of the above kind certain confessions that she was worn out with anxieties, and felt her lonely condition; that youth and beauty did not last forever; that she had let slip opportunities of doing herself substantial service, and him too, if he could look at things as coolly now as he used to; and she began to think she had done wrong.