Several days passed. Every morning Mrs. MacDonald, driven by Cuthbert in the family carriage, came to town, to spend the day in the cell with Faustina, while Cuthbert remained in attendance upon the viscount. And every evening she returned to the castle. The Earl of Hurstmonceux did not come. But news at length came of him. His bankers wrote that he was out on his yacht, his exact latitude being unknown. Lord Vincent, now that he was fully committed for trial, really did not seem to be anxious for his father's return. Perhaps he would rather not have met the earl under the present circumstances. He held daily consultations with his counsel. These were entirely confidential. Being assured by Mr. Bruce that it was essentially necessary the counsel should be in possession of all the facts, the prisoner made a tolerably clean breast of it, at least so far as the abduction of the negroes was concerned; he exercised some little reticence in the matters of his relations with Faustina and his conspiracy against Lady Vincent. Mr. Brace of course put the fairest construction upon everything; but still he could not help feeling the darkest misgivings as to the result of the approaching trial. And the viscount, rendered keenly observant by intense anxiety, detected these doubts in the mind of his counsel, and became daily more despairing. He looked forward to the dishonor of a public trial with burning indignation; to the possible, nay probable, conviction and sentence that might follow with shrinking dread, and to the execution of that sentence with stony horror. Penal servitude! Great Heaven! penal servitude for him, so high- born, so fastidious, so luxurious in all his habits! Penal servitude for him, the Viscount Vincent! He had often made one of a party of sight-seers, visiting the prisons, the hulks, the quarries, where the prisoners were confined at work. He had seen them in the coarse prison garb, working in chains, under the broiling sun of summer, and under the bitter cold of winter. He had seen them at their loathsome meals and in their stifling sleeping pens. He had gazed upon them with eyes of haughty, cold, unsympathizing curiosity. To him and his friends they formed but a spectacle of interest or amusement, like a drama. And now to think that he might, nay, probably would, soon make one of their shameful number! The Viscount Vincent working in chains; gazed at by his former companions; pointed out to curious strangers! That was the appalling picture forever present to his imagination.