“Marjorie!  Marjorie!  Wake up! the order hath come.  It is for to-night.”

Very slowly Marjorie rose out of the glimmering depths of sleep into which she had fallen on the hot August afternoon, sunk down upon the arm of the great chair that stood by the parlour window, and saw Mrs. Thomas radiant before her, waving a scrap of paper in her hand.

Nearly two months were passed; and as yet no opportunity had been given to the prisoner’s wife to visit him, and during that time it had been impossible to go back into the hills and leave the girl alone.  The heat of the summer had been stifling, down here in the valley; a huge plague of grasshoppers had ravaged all England; and there were times when even in the grass-country outside Derby, their chirping had become intolerable.  The heat, and the necessary seclusion, and the anxiety had told cruelly upon the country girl; Marjorie’s face had perceptibly thinned; her eyes had shadows above and beneath; yet she knew she must not go; since the young wife had attached herself to her altogether, finding Alice (she said) too dull for her spirits.  Mr. Bassett was gone again.  There was no word of a trial; although there had been a hearing or two before the magistrates; and it was known that Topcliffe continually visited the prison.

One piece of news only had there been to comfort her during this time, and that, that Mr. John’s prediction had been fulfilled with regard to the captured priest, Mr. Garlick, who, back from Rheims only a few months, had been deported from England, since it was his first offence, But he would soon be over again, no doubt, and next time with death as the stake in the game.

* * * * *

Marjorie drew a long breath, and passed her hands over her forehead.

“The order?” she said.  “What order?”

The girl explained, torrentially.  A man had come just now from the Guildhall; he had asked for Mrs. FitzHerbert; she had gone down into the hall to see him; and all the rest of the useless details.  But the effect was that leave had been given at last to visit the prisoner—­for two persons, of which Mrs. FitzHerbert must be one; and that they must present the order to the gaoler before seven o’clock, when they would be admitted.  She looked—­such was the constitution of her mind—­as happy as if it were an order for his release.  Marjorie drove away the last shreds of sleep; and kissed her.

“That is very good news,” she said.  “Now we will begin to do something.”

* * * * *

The sun had sunk so far, when they set out at last, as to throw the whole of the square into golden shade; and, in the narrow, overhung Friar’s Gate, where the windows of the upper stories were so near that a man might shake hands with his friend on the other side, the twilight had already begun.  They had determined to walk, in order less to attract attention, in spite of the filth through which they knew they