Reuben's face turned crimson, but so engrossed was Eve by her own satisfaction that his sudden confusion was lost upon her, and she continued: "I may as well tell you, Reuben, that a terrible trouble has fallen upon me and mine since I parted with you. That very night some one played us false and betrayed the Lottery into the hands of the revenue." "I can't see what else was to be expected," said Reuben stolidly: "when men run their necks into a noose they may be pretty sure of some day finding the knot drawn tight." "I was so afraid that you might have laid hold on anything I said to you, and had been led in any way to tell it against them," sighed Eve, paying no heed to the taunt with which Reuben had hoped to sting her. "And supposing I had," he said, "oughtn't you to thank me for doing it? Don't tell me, Eve"--and he threw into his tone a mixture of contempt and bitterness--"that you've come to take it as a trial that those you talk of belonging to are forced into taking to honest ways." "Those I belong to have been hunted down like dogs," she cried. "A price has been set upon their lives, and one of them has been dragged away up here that they may try and hang him if they can." "What?" exclaimed Reuben, starting to his feet--"hang him? Who are they going to hang? What can they hang him for? Is it your cousin, Adam Pascal, you're talking of?" "No: I wish it was," said Eve, her face quivering with the emotion the relation of these details stirred within her; "but, though 'twas in fair fight, 'twas Jerrem shot the man." "Shot what man?" gasped Reuben. "The revenue-man. The Lottery was lying still, waiting for the tide to come up, when the boats crept up behind them in the dark; and if it hadn't been for Adam not one among their crew would have lived to tell the tale, but by his word he kept his own men quiet--all but Jerrem, who fired his gun, and down the revenue-man fell, dead." Reuben stifled the exclamation which rose to his lips, and Eve, to whose days of pent-up misery the repetition of these woes seemed to bring relief, continued: "At first all blamed Adam and praised Jerrem, but almost at once the soldiers came, and they'd only barely time to hide away from them. Adam went to the mill, and was there a week and more; and then some one told him that 'twas I was the cause of their being betrayed; and it drove him so mad with jealousy and rage that he told of the place where Jerrem was hid; and the next day the soldiers came again, dragged Jerrem out and carried him away. And now, though uncle spends every guinea he has got, 'tis almost sure that through Adam's word Jerrem will be hanged; for they say they've brought them both to London, and that they're lodged in Newgate jail."