future visits--and every hour that Reuben had to spare was given up to Jerrem--Joan was the theme that threaded all their discourse, and by her power Jerrem's soft heart and softer nature became to Reuben as an open page, wherein he read of actions in which good and bad were so mixed up and jumbled that in the very midst of his reproof and condemnation Reuben was often forced to stand abashed before some act of generous pity which found no echo in his former life. And out of this humility, which grew in strength, there sprang forth greater merits than from all the weary efforts he made at working out his own atonement; for Reuben, like Adam, had been over-satisfied about his own rectitude, and took pride in the knowledge that if ever he had committed a wrong he had acknowledged it freely and expiated it to the uttermost farthing; while Jerrem, for the first time in his life brought to see guilt in what he had counted pleasure, scarce dared to listen to a hope of mercy for himself, but rather craved Reuben to beg it for the many who had been thoughtless sharers in his folly. His ruling desire was to see Joan once more, and no sooner was he told that the admiralty session had begun and that his day of trial, although not fixed, was near at hand, than he begged Reuben to write and ask Joan to delay her promised visit no longer; and this Reuben did, adding on his own account that, from what the lawyer said, it would be best she came at once by the coach which would reach London on the following Thursday week, on which day Reuben would be waiting to receive her. Now, at the onset of this disaster had such a letter reached Polperro not a man in the place but, short of knowing it would cost his life, would have risked all else to go to London, and if Jerrem was to die give him courage by mustering round their comrade at the last. But the downpour of disaster had cowed these daring spirits, and the men who had not known what fear meant so long as success was secure now trembled and gave way under the superstitious certainty that Ill-luck was following them and Misfortune had marked them for her own. Their energies paralyzed, they succumbed to what they looked upon as Fate, and in most cases were seized without a struggle and led off to the nearest prisons without an effort on their own part toward resistance.