I paced a little space of the deck. I could have held him long in converse; I had, methought, a thousand questions to ask. On a sudden, happening to look along the deck to the left, I saw a number of men appear. Some of them were convicts and the others were the guard. They came into the ship by the gallery that stretched from the quay to the gangway. The convicts were dressed in a rusty brown suit with red stripes upon it; they all looked alike, so horribly levelling is the garb of the felon. A woman who was waiting shrieked out and ran some steps, and a little boy of ten or twelve, whose hand was grasped by a young woman, called out: ‘Father! Father!’ and began to cry piteously, still calling: ‘Father! Father!’ The warders came to a pause near the hatch. There were four convicts; three of them were embraced by the women who had been waiting, the little boy meanwhile continuing to cry loudly, and two of the women sobbing piteously; the fourth advanced and paused with his eyes upon me. It was Tom, but for a few minutes I did not know him. His face was a fiery red and wet with sweat, as though he had been brought fresh from some exhausting labour; his hair was closely cut, and his beard was cleanly shaved. The loathsome garb had as utterly transformed him as though he had been wrapped in the shroud of the dead. I cried his name and fled to him. He locked me in his arms, and so we stood for a little while speechless. ‘My Marian!’ ‘Oh, Tom, time is precious and I have much to say! Have you received any letters from me?’ ‘None.’ ‘I have written to you often. Why did they not give you my letters? But you would not think because you did not hear from me that I was forgetting you?’ ‘Have you heard from me, Marian?’ ‘No, Tom.’ ‘I have written. But a prison-governor may stop a felon’s letters, and mine have been stopped, and they have not given me yours. We may have written too strongly.’ He started and looked at me a little wildly and cried: ‘Marian, why are you here? This atmosphere is pollution. Look at my dress; look at these hands. I have worn chains; I am driven as though I were a mad and dangerous beast; I am herded with ruffians, and I am innocent! I swear by your pure heart, Marian, I am guiltless of the crime for which they have put me into this ship and for which they send me ashore by day to--to---- Why are you here, dear?’ he cried, still wildly, and now a little incoherently. ‘They have hellishly sworn me, innocent as I am, into this. They have made a felon of me. They are sending me from my country, and my heart must break--my heart must break!’ he said, sobbing convulsively. ‘And they will bury me in a convict’s grave. Oh, Marian, it is at an end between us--it must be so. I am a convict, ruined and for ever dishonoured. Look at me!’