“I will get into the stables of some public-house.  I pass for a tramp.”  There was a terrible earnestness in the simple statement, which did more to make Mary Goddard realise her husband’s position than anything else could have done.  To people who live in the country the word “tramp” means so much.

“Poor Walter!” said Mrs. Goddard softly, and for the first time since she had seen him the tears stood in her eyes.

“Don’t waste your pity on me,” he answered.  “Let me be off.”

There was half a loaf and some cheese left upon the table.  Mrs. Goddard put them together and offered them to him.

“You had better take it,” she said.  He took the food readily enough and hid it under his frock.  He knew the value of it.  Then he got upon his feet.  He moved painfully, for the cold and the wet had stiffened his limbs already weakened with hunger and exhaustion.

“Let me be off,” he said again, and moved towards the door.  His wife followed him in silence.  In the passage he paused again.

“Well, Mary,” he said, “I suppose I ought to be grateful to you for not giving me up to the police.”

“You know very well,” answered Mrs. Goddard, “that what I can do to save you, I will do.  You know that.”

“Then do it, and don’t forget the money.  It’s hanging this time if I’m caught.”

Mrs. Goddard uttered a low cry and leaned against the wall.

“What?” she faltered.  “You have not—­”

“I believe I killed somebody in getting away,” answered the felon with a grim laugh.  Then, without her assistance, he opened the door and went out into the pouring rain.  The door shut behind him and Mary Goddard heard his retreating footsteps on the path outside.  When he was fairly gone she suddenly broke down, and falling upon her knees in the passage beat her forehead against the wall in an agony of despair.

Murderer—­thief, forger and murderer, too!  It was more than she could bear.  Even now he was within a stone’s throw of her house; a moment ago he had been here, beside her—­there beyond, too, in the dining-room, sitting opposite to her at her own table as he had sat in his days of innocence and honour for many a long year before his crime.  In the sudden necessity of acting, in the unutterable surprise of finding herself again face to face with him, she had been calm; now that he was gone she felt as though she must go mad.  She asked herself if this filthy tramp, this branded villain, was the husband she had loved and cherished for years, whose beauty she had admired, whose hand she had held so often, whose lips she had kissed—­if this was the father of her lovely child.  It was all over now.  There was blood upon his hands as well as other guilt.  If he were caught he must die, or at the very least be imprisoned for life.  He could never again be free to come forth after the expiation of his crimes and to claim her and his child.  If he escaped now, it must be to live in a distant