must pass, along the couple of hundred yards that separated them from the prison.  For every housewife emptied her slops out of doors, and swept her house (when she did so at all) into the same place:  now and again the heaps would be pushed together and removed, but for the most part they lay there, bones and rags and rotten fruit,—­dusty in one spot, so that all blew about—­dampened in others where a pail or two had been poured forth.  The heat, too, was stifling, cast out again towards evening from the roofs and walls that had drunk it in all day from the burning skies.

As they stood before the door at last and waited, after beating the great iron knocker on the iron plate, a kind of despair came down on Marjorie.  They had advanced just so far in two months as to be allowed to speak with the prisoner; and, from her talkings with Mr. Biddell, had understood how little that was.  Indeed, he had hinted to her plainly enough that even in this it might be that they were no more than pawns in the enemy’s hand; and that, under a show of mercy, it was often allowed for a prisoner’s friends to have free access to him in order to shake his resolution.  If there was any cause for congratulation then, it lay solely in the thought that other means had so far failed.  One thing at least they knew, for their comfort, that there had been no talk of torture....

It was a full couple of minutes before the door opened to show them a thin, brown-faced man, with his sleeves rolled up, dressed over his shirt and hose in a kind of leathern apron.  He nodded as he saw the ladies, with an air of respect, however, and stood aside to let them come in.  Then, with the same civility, he asked for the order, and read it, holding it up to the light that came through the little barred window over the door.

It was an unspeakably dreary little entrance passage in which they stood, wainscoted solidly from floor to ceiling with wood that looked damp and black from age; the ceiling itself was indistinguishable in the twilight; the floor seemed composed of packed earth, three or four doors showed in the woodwork; that opposite to the one by which they had entered stood slightly ajar, and a smoky light shone from beyond it.  The air was heavy and hot and damp, and smelled of mildew.

The man gave the order back when he had read it, made a little gesture that resembled a bow, and led the way straight forward.

They found themselves, when they had passed through the half-open door, in another passage running at right-angles to the entrance, with windows, heavily barred, so as to exclude all but the faintest twilight, even though the sun was not yet set; there appeared to be foliage of some kind, too, pressing against them from outside, as if a little central yard lay there; and the light, by which alone they could see their way along the uneven earth floor, came from a flambeau which hung by the door, evidently put there just now by the man who had opened to them; he led them down this passage to the left, down a couple of steps; unlocked another door of enormous weight and thickness and closed this behind them.  They found themselves in complete darkness.