"Drive to Mr. Johnson's in the High street--quick, quick. I will give you half-a-crown if you will go quick." For, indeed, her endurance, her patience, was strained almost to snapping; yet at Hellingford station, where doubtless they could have told her the truth, she dared not ask the question. It was past eight o'clock at night. In many houses in the little country town there were unusual lights and sounds. The inhabitants were showing their hospitality to such of the strangers brought by the assizes, as were lingering there now that the business which had drawn them was over. The Judges had left the town that afternoon, to wind up the circuit by the short list of a neighbouring county town. Mr. Johnson was entertaining a dinner-party of attorneys when he was summoned from dessert by the announcement of a "lady who wanted to speak to him immediate and particular." He went into his study in not the best of tempers. There he found his client, Miss Wilkins, white and ghastly, standing by the fireplace, with her eyes fixed on the door. "It is you, Miss Wilkins! I am very glad--" "Dixon!" said she. It was all she could utter. Mr. Johnson shook his head. "Ah; that's a sad piece of business, and I'm afraid it has shortened your visit at Rome." "Is he--?" "Ay, I'm afraid there's no doubt of his guilt. At any rate, the jury found him guilty, and--" "And!" she repeated, quickly, sitting down, the better to hear the words that she knew were coming-- "He is condemned to death." "When?" "The Saturday but one after the Judges left the town, I suppose--it's the usual time." "Who tried him?" "Judge Corbet; and, for a new judge, I must say I never knew one who got through his business so well. It was really as much as I could stand to hear him condemning the prisoner to death. Dixon was undoubtedly guilty, and he was as stubborn as could be--a sullen old fellow who would let no one help him through. I'm sure I did my best for him at Miss Monro's desire and for your sake. But he would furnish me with no particulars, help us to no evidence. I had the hardest work to keep him from confessing all before witnesses, who would have been bound to repeat it as evidence against him. Indeed, I never thought he would have pleaded 'Not Guilty.' I think it was only with a desire to justify himself in the eyes of some old Hamley acquaintances. Good God, Miss Wilkins! What's the matter? You're not fainting!" He rang the bell till the rope remained in his hands. "Here, Esther! Jerry! Whoever you are, come quick! Miss Wilkins has fainted! Water! Wine! Tell Mrs. Johnson to come here directly!" Mrs. Johnson, a kind, motherly woman, who had been excluded from the "gentleman's dinner party," and had devoted her time to superintending the dinner her husband had ordered, came in answer to his call for assistance, and found Ellinor lying back in her chair white and senseless.