She said the word with a hopeless indifference, half nullifying the promise. Then, lighting her candle, she went slowly to her room. Oh, but the joy that is dead weighs heavy! Maria could hardly trail her body upstairs. Her life felt haggard and thin, as if it was in its eleventh hour; and she was too physically exhausted to stretch out her hand into the dark and find the clasp of that Unseen Hand always waiting the hour of need, strong to uphold, and ready to comfort. No, she could not pray; she had lost Harry: there was nothing else she desired. In her room there was a picture of the crucifixion, and she cast her eyes up to the Christ hanging there, forsaken in the dark, and wondered if He pitied her, but the pang of unpermitted prayer made her dumb in her lonely grief. Alas, God Christ! along the weary lands, What lone, invisible Calvaries are set! What drooping brows with dews of anguish wet, What faint outspreading of unwilling hands Bound to a viewless cross, with viewless bands. CHAPTER VIII. THE HELP OF JACOB COHEN. On leaving Maria, Lord Medway went straight to his friend General Clinton. He had just dined, and having taken much wine, was bland and good-tempered. Medway's entrance delighted him. "I have had my orderly riding about for a couple of hours looking for you," he said. "Where have you been Ernest? My dinner wanted flavor without you." "I have been seeing some people about this son of Bradley's that the Police Court has in its clutches. By-the-bye, why don't you put a stop to its infamous blackmailing? As a court, it is only a part of Howe's treachery, formed for the very purpose of extortion, and of bringing His Majesty's Government into disrepute. Abolish the whole affair, Henry. You are court sufficient, in a city under martial law." "All you say is true, Ernest, and there is no doubt that Matthews and DuBois and the rest of them are the worst of oppressors. But I am expected to subjugate the whole South this winter, and I must leave New York in three or four weeks now." "The Government expects miracles of you, Henry; but if military miracles are possible, you are the soldier to work them. I have found out to-day why you are not more popular; it is this Police Court, and they call it a _Military_ Police Court, I believe; and all its tyrannies are laid to you because your predecessor instituted it. They might as well lay Howe's love for rebels to you."