By a little after six that evening Paul found himself again a prisoner in the gaol where he had previously spent six months. But this time all was different. On the former occasion, even although he knew he had been unjustly accused and more unjustly prosecuted, he was aware that much public sympathy was felt for him. He was regarded as a kind of hero among a large class of people. He felt sure, too, that in due course his name would be cleared, and even although the marks of his prison life would ever remain upon him, he would be outwardly very little the worse for what he suffered. Now, however, the situation was worse. The sky was black and murky; the air was smoke-laden; the atmosphere seemed to be tense with gloom; but it was not blacker than the sky of his life. Everything was hopeless, and he could do nothing. Hour after hour he sat in Strangeways Gaol, thinking and wondering. When the magistrates had remanded him for trial, he had shown no sign, but had stood proud, calm, erect, and had shown no perturbation whatever at their judgment. It might have been the most commonplace thing imaginable. But now that he was alone in his cell everything was different. He saw what it all meant, and he knew, too, where the pathway in which he had elected to tread would lead. He was not a coward, and he had steeled his heart against the worst. Death he did not fear; but even although he believed that to no man who was dead was there any life hereafter, and, as a consequence, he would know nothing of what took place, he dreaded the thought of disgrace. He knew that throughout the whole land his portrait would be printed in a thousand papers. He knew he would be discussed by people whom he despised. He knew that his name would be a byword and a hissing in the country, while his mother---- But no, he would not think of her. And what of his hopes? What of his ambitions? What of his life's work? All seemed to be at an end. He called to mind what his mother had said to him years before on the Altarnun Moors. "Find your father," she had said. "Clear your name from reproach, and be revenged for all he did." And now he would have to die, with his work unaccomplished. In spite of everything, he had failed to find his father, failed to find the slightest clue to his whereabouts. Thus, as far as that went, his life's work would be unaccomplished. He thought of his career, the career which he was just beginning to make brilliant. He had become a Member of Parliament. He had risen from obscurity to what was the promise of fame. He had been invited to the houses of the rich and great. His name had been spoken of as one that would have a great future, and now all that was at an end.