Outside, the tall white spire of St. Giles's looked down upon us. In the churchyard the white tombs stood in peace, and overhead the moon sailed in splendour. Jenny drew a long breath: she caught one of the rails of the churchyard and looked in curiously. 'Will,' she said shuddering, 'I am ashamed of myself because the manners and the talk come back to me so easily. Once I am with them, I become one of them again. I tremble when the man Merridew appears. It is as if he will do me, too, a mischief some day. I cannot forget the old times and the old talk. Yet I know how dreadful it is. Look at the graves, Will. Under them they sleep so quiet; they never move: they don't hear anything: and beside them every night collects this company of gaol-birds and Tyburn birds. Why, they don't shiver and shake when Mr. Merridew looks in.' 'Let us get back, Jenny.' I shuddered, like all the rest. 'Will, I have seen that man--that monster--that wretch--for whom no punishment is enough--three times. Each time I have felt that, like the rest of those poor rogues, my own life was in his hands. Do you think he can do me a mischief? Why do I ask? I know that he will. I am never wrong.' 'What mischief, Jenny, could he do?' 'I don't know. It is a prophetic feeling. But who knows what such a villain may be concocting? Good-night, you happy people in the graves. Good-night.' I drew her away, and walked with her to her own door in the Square. 'Will?' she asked, 'what do you think of me now?' 'Whatever I think, Jenny, I am all wonder and admiration that you are--what you are--when I see--what you might have been.' She burst into tears. She flung her empty basket out into the road. 'Oh,' she cried, 'if I could escape from them! If I could only escape from them for ever! I should think nothing too terrible if only I could escape from them!' A month or two later I remembered those words. Nothing too terrible if only she could escape from them! CHAPTER VI A WARNING AND ANOTHER OFFER As soon as we had once more found the means of keeping ourselves we went back to our former abode under the shadow of Lambeth Church on the Bank looking over the river on one side and over the meadows and orchards of Lambeth Marsh on the other. The air which sweeps up the river with every tide is fresh and strong and pure; good for the child, not to speak of the child's mother, while the people, few in number, are generally honest though humble: for the most part they are fishermen. Here I should have been happy but for the thought, suggested by Jenny, that my cousin and his attorney Probus were perhaps devising some new means of persecution, and that the man Merridew, who had perjured himself concerning me already, whose sinister face I had gazed upon with terror, so visibly was the mark of Cain stamped upon it, was but a tool of the attorney.