At that and at sight of the change that came over my judge's face the hope that had risen in me died suddenly; and I saw again the grim prospect of the prison and the gibbet; and to be led from one to the other, dumb, one of a drove, unregarded. And, it coming upon me strongly that in a moment it would be too late, I found my voice and cried to him, "Oh, my lord, save me!" I cried. "Help me! For the sake of God, help me!" Whether my words moved him or he had not yet given up my case, he looked at me attentively, and with a shade as of recollection on his face. Then he asked quietly what I was. "Usher in a school, my lord," someone answered. "Poor devil!" he exclaimed. And then, to the others, "Here, you! Withdraw a little to the passage, if you please. I would speak with him alone." The constable opened his mouth to demur; but the young gentleman would not suffer it; saying with a fine air that there was no resisting, "Pooh, man, I am Lord Shrewsbury. I will be responsible for him." And with that he got them out of the room. CHAPTER IX I know now that there never was a man in whom the natural propensity to side with the weaker party was by custom and exercise more highly developed than in my late lord, in whose presence I then stood; who, indeed, carried that virtue to such an extent that if any fault could be found with his public carriage--which I am very far from admitting, but only that such a colour might be given to some parts of it by his enemies--the flaw was attributable to this excess of generosity. Yet he has since told me that on this occasion of our first meeting, it was neither my youth nor my misery--in the main at any rate--that induced him to take so extraordinary a step as that of seeing me alone; but a strange and puzzling reminiscence, which my features aroused in him, and whereto his first words, when we were left together, bore witness. "Where, my lad," said he, staring at me, "have I seen you before?" As well as I could, for the dread of him in which I stood, I essayed to clear my brain and think; and in me also, as I looked at him, the attempt awoke a recollection, as if I had somewhere met him. But I could conceive one place only where it was possible I might have seen a man of his rank; and so stammered that perhaps at the Rose Inn, at Ware, in the gaming-room I might have met him. His lip curled, "No," he said coldly, "I have honoured the Groom-Porter at Whitehall once and again by leaving my guineas with him. But at the Rose Inn, at Ware--never! And heavens, man," he continued in a tone of contemptuous wonder, "what brought such as you in that place?" In shame, and aware, now that it was too late, that I had said the worst thing in the world to commend myself to him, I stammered that I had gone thither--that I had gone thither with a friend. "A woman?" he said quickly. I allowed that it was so. "The same that led you into this?" he continued sharply.