It was clear weather next morning. We breakfasted very early, walked to the coach, and quitted Ramsgate at about eight o’clock. It was a dreadful journey to me; endless as the night to one who is shipwrecked and watches for the dawn. The weather had changed too; snow was falling at Canterbury and it was bitterly cold all the way to London. We reached my uncle’s house at ten o’clock that night. My aunt’s letter had been received, and a cheerful fire and a hot, comfortable supper awaited us. My uncle came downstairs to receive us and kissed us both in silence, as though some one dear to us all lay dead upstairs. Exhausted as I was by the long journey, by the cold, by the dreadful sufferings of my mind, I would still insist on hearing of Tom, on learning how he was, how he looked, the meaning of this dreadful thing which had befallen him and me, before I sat or took a bite or stirred a foot to the bedroom to remove my travelling attire. But my uncle was inflexible. ‘Go with your aunt,’ he exclaimed; ‘then return with her here and warm and refresh yourself. I cannot talk rationally with one who looks half dead.’ He forced me to obey, but I made haste to rejoin him. He placed me close to the fire and gave me some hot brandy and water and a biscuit, which he said would act as a stay till supper was served, and, my aunt arriving, he began to talk about Tom. ‘He is charged--did I not write it?--with attempting to scuttle his ship.’ ‘Why should he do that?’ I cried. ‘To defraud the insurance offices. I told him at the time that he erred by over-insuring, but it seems that he went further even than he admitted, for he put a venture of cargo of his own into the vessel and insured the goods and the freight in the Neptune. Four offices!’ he exclaimed, and he broke off, looking down with a very grave face. ‘Where is he?’ I cried. ‘In Newgate,’ he answered. ‘Oh, don’t tell me that!’ I shrieked, clasping my hands and rocking myself. My aunt stared with a white face at her husband. ‘Now, Marian,’ said my uncle, ‘if you possess one particle of the spirit of your father, let it animate and support you now--now, and until this tragic affair is at an end. Screams and lamentations are not going to help Captain Butler. He says that he is the victim of a diabolical conspiracy. I believe it, and it will be our duty to prove it. What is there about Newgate more than there is about Millbank or the Hulks or Horsemonger Lane to horrify you?’ ‘Why is he in Newgate?’ asked my aunt. ‘He was charged, yesterday, at Bow Street, and committed to take his trial at the Central Criminal Court. That’s why. There is nothing in it. Many innocent men have been locked up in Newgate.’ ‘Who charges him with this crime?’ said I. ‘His mate, a man of the name of Rotch, and a carpenter, a drunken rascal, of the name of Nodder.’ And then he related the story of the accusation, and described what had passed at Bow Street on the preceding day.