'Yes, Will, for you and for yours. I have counted the cost. Your life is worth it all--and more. Don't think I never flinched. No. I had thoughts of letting everything go. Why should I imperil myself--my life--to defeat a villain? It was easy to do nothing. Then one night I saw a ghost--oh! a real ghost. It was Alice, and in her arms lay your boy.' Jenny rose slowly. The afternoon was turning into early evening: the cell was already in twilight. She rose, and gradually, so great is the power of an actress, that even though my eyes were overcast, I saw the narrow cell no longer. There was no Jenny. In her place stood another woman. It was Alice. In the arms of that spirit lay the semblance of a child. And the spirit spoke. It was the voice of Alice. 'Woman!' she said, solemnly, 'give me back my husband. Give the boy the honour of his father. Murderess! Thou wouldst kill the father and ruin the son. There shall be no peace or rest or quiet for thee to the end. Save him--for thou must. Suffer and endure what follows. Thou shalt suffer, but thou shalt not be destroyed.' Alice spoke: it was as if she came there with intent to say those words. Then she vanished. And with a trembling of great fear, even as Saul trembled when he saw the spirit of Samuel, I saw Jenny standing in the place where Alice had been. She fell into her chair: she burst into tears--the first and the last that ever I saw upon her cheek: she covered her face with her hands. I soothed her, I assured her of all that I could say in gratitude infinite: perhaps I mingled my tears with hers. 'Oh, Will,' she cried. 'Do not vex yourself over the fate of an orange-wench. What does it matter for such a creature as myself?' The Old Bailey never witnessed a greater crowd than that which filled the court to witness the trial of Mistress Jenny Wilmot, charged with receiving stolen goods knowing them to be stolen. Her assumed name of Madame Vallance was forgotten: her married name of Halliday was forgotten: on everybody's tongue she was Jenny Wilmot the actress: Jenny Wilmot the Toast of the Town: Jenny Wilmot of Drury Lane. They spoke of her beauty, her grace, her vivacity: these were still remembered in spite of her absence from the stage of nearly two years. Now two years is a long time for an actress, unless she is very good indeed, to be remembered. But the 'Case of Clarinda' was by this time known to every club and coffee-house in London: not a City clerk or shopman but had the story pat, with oaths and sighs and tears. My Lord Brockenhurst had done his share in changing public opinion, and the later story, that of the noble origin of the stolen girl, was also whispered from mouth to mouth.