"Do you plead for him, mistress? He is lucky to have such an advocate. Get out, judge. For the sake of those bright eyes beside you, you may keep your life, but you shall do penance for your sins. Get out, I say." Very reluctantly Marriott crept from the carriage. "You have all my money," he whimpered. "Down on your knees, then, and ask pardon for passing judgment on a better man than yourself. Down! Quickly, or this pistol of mine may forget that I have made a promise." Marriott sank upon his knees in a place where the road was very muddy. "The man I sent to Tyburn--say it after me." "The man I sent to Tyburn," repeated Marriott. "--was a gentleman compared to me." "--was a gentleman compared to me." "I am an unjust judge, a scoundrel at heart, a mean, contemptible coward, unfit to consort with honest men, and every pure, good woman should spurn me like dirt. Say it! Louder! The lady should be interested in your confession." Marriott said the words, raising his voice as he was ordered. "And I pray to Heaven to have pity on the soul of the man I sent to his death at Tyburn. Say it aloud, with uplifted hands. It is a prayer you may well make, for, God knows, you'll have need of all His mercy some day." The prayer was repeated, and so like a real prayer was it that, in the darkness of the coach, Barbara smiled. Prayer and Judge Marriott seemed so wide asunder. "Now get back into the coach, and take care your muddy clothes do not soil the lady's gown, as your presence could hardly fail to be pestilential to her, did she but know you as you really are. Good-night, fair mistress; some day I hope to see you under better escort." For a moment he bowed low over his horse's neck, then he turned and galloped straight across the heath. Judge Marriott had entered the coach hurriedly, so glad to escape from the highwayman that he did not consider how poor a figure he had cut in the sight of the girl. Fearful that his tormentor might not yet have done with him, he sank back in his corner again. Barbara was sitting forward looking from the window. "He has gone," she said. "Curse him!" said Marriott in a whisper. He was still afraid, and his voice trembled. "Surely his mask was--" "It was brown," said Barbara. "I thought the man who wore the brown mask was dead." "I thought so too," he muttered as he leaned forward to the window and watched the highwayman disappear into the shadows of the night. CHAPTER III GREY EYES