And, indeed, I should have found myself too weak in body to carry out my resolution to go at once to London. The railway to Ramsgate was not then made. I do not know that it was even in contemplation. A coach left early for London from Ramsgate every morning; it carried the mails, I think, and travelled by way of Canterbury. When my aunt found me somewhat composed, she went to the office to secure places by the coach on the morrow. She left me her husband’s letter, and I read it again and again, and every time I read it I rolled my eyes around the room, seeking to realise that I was awake. There was something shocking and frightful to me in my uncle speaking of the Old Bailey; I associated it with Newgate Prison. Living in the City as I did, well did I know the grim, dark, massive walls of that horrid jail. Would Tom be locked up in that prison which I could not think of without a sickening fancy of the executions there--of the remorseless human beasts, men and women white with gin, gaping with the lust of blood, gathered together to witness the sight--of the filthy tenements round about, every window pale with the eager faces of cowards and devils, the grimy roofs littered with sightseers? What was Tom charged with? What was the meaning of scuttling a ship? What punishment was the act visited with? Was a man hanged for scuttling? I paced about the room in the agony of my mind till I sank with exhaustion into a chair. I dug the nails of my fingers into my palms till the blood sprang. Tom in prison! The gentlest, the tenderest, the truest, the most honourable of men charged with a dreadful crime, a hanging crime perhaps, and locked up in jail! CHAPTER IX SHE VISITS NEWGATE It blew almost a hurricane of wind that night. It swept out of the east and stormed in thunder against the house in which we lodged. The rain burst in furious discharges upon the window-panes, and the lightning was sun-bright at times, and the noise of the rushing sea was a continuous artillery which drowned the loud peals from the clouds. All night long I lay awake with wide-open eyes. Thrice my aunt visited my bedside to see how I did and every time I could give her no other answer than that the thought of my sweetheart lying in prison was driving me mad, was killing me; so I would rave. I could think of nothing but Tom. I had no sight for the lightning, no ear for the thunder of the gale, nor for the voice of the sea in its wrath.