Sophy was still upon her knees, when the grey light of a rainy October morning gradually strengthened into day. Gloomy and louring, it seemed to regard her with a cheerless scowl as, shivering with cold and excitement, she unclosed the door, and stepped forth into the moist air. "How like my earthly destiny!" she sighed. "But there is a sun behind the dark clouds, and hope exists, even for a wretch like me." The sound of horses' hoofs approaching rapidly struck upon her ear, and the next moment she had caught hold of the bridle of the nearest rider. They were the constables, who had conducted Noah to prison, returning to the village. "Tell me," she cried, in a voice which much weeping had rendered hoarse, and almost inarticulate, "something about my poor husband--will he be hung?" "Nothing more certain," replied the person thus addressed. "Small chance of escape for him. The foolish fellow has confessed all." "Then he did really commit the murder?" "Worse than that, Mistress, he drew his own neck out of the noose, and let another fellow suffer the death he richly deserved. By his own account, hanging is too good for such a monster. He should be burnt alive." "May God forgive him!" exclaimed Sophy, wringing her hands. "Alas! alas! He was a kind, good man to me." "Don't take on, my dear, after that fashion," said the other horseman, with a knowing leer. "You were no mate for a fellow like him. Young and pretty as you are, you will soon get a better husband." Sophy turned from the speaker with a sickening feeling of disgust at him and his ribald jest, and staggered back into the house. She was not many minutes in making up her mind to go to her husband. Hastily packing up a few necessaries in a small bundle, she called the old serving-man, who had lived with her husband for many years, and bade him harness the horse, and drive her to B----. The journey was long and dreary, for it rained the whole day. Sophy did not care for the rain; the dulness of the day was more congenial to her present feelings: the gay beams of the sun would have seemed a mockery to her bitter sorrow. As they passed through the village, a troop of idle boys followed them into the turnpike road, shouting at the top of their voices,-- "There goes Noah Cotton's wife!--the murderer's wife! Look how grand she be in her fine chaise!" "Ay," responded some human fiend, through an open window, loud enough to reach the ears of the grief-stricken woman; "but pride will have a fall." The penitent Sophy wept afresh at these insults. "Oh," she sighed, "I deserve all this. I was too proud. But they don't know how miserable I am, or they would not causelessly inflict upon me another wound."