'No--in much less time--in a few months. I am permitted on the highest authority to assure you that your banishment will be but short. As soon as it can with decency be asked for, a full pardon will be asked for and it will be granted. You will then only have to return in order to delight your friends once more.' 'When shall I have to go?' 'A ship is now fitting out. She sails in a week or a fortnight. You will sail as a cabin passenger, entrusted to the protection of the Captain. The--the other--passengers will be confined between decks, I believe.' 'My Lord, I am deeply touched by all your kindness.' 'Madame, _I_ have done little--little indeed. Would it had been more! I shall now, with your permission, make arrangements with the Captain of the ship for your entertainment on the voyage and your reception on reaching the port.' 'So,' said Jenny, 'in one day I am deprived of my husband. I am a widow who never was a wife. I am deprived of my country--which is London; and of all my friends.' His lordship's face changed. 'Your husband, Madame? Is he dead?' 'He died last night. Let us not speak of him.' 'Then you are free' He glanced at me: I saw his meaning and the purpose in his eyes. 'You are free.' I stepped out, leaving them together. In a few minutes he came out with the look of one distracted, and not knowing what he was doing or whither he went. Within the cell Jenny was sitting at the table with red and tearful eyes. 'That good and noble friend, Will, would make me Lady Brockenhurst.' 'Jenny--why not?' 'He would go with me: he would marry me here and sail with me. No--no--I promised his sister. What? Because I love a man--the best of men--should I give him children who would be ashamed of their mother and her origin? Mine would be a pretty history for them to learn, would it not? No, Will, no. Believe me I love him too well. Even if he were a meaner man, I could never bring my history to smirch the chronicles of a respectable family.' She was silent a little. 'Will,' she said presently, looking up, 'all that I foretold has proved true. I want no money. I am going out to a strange country. It is not Ireland as I thought. It is Virginia. I see it again so plain--so clear--I shall know it when I land. But I can see no farther. There will be no return for me to Drury Lane. My vision stops short--now that I see you--somewhere--with me--I see Alice also. But I cannot see England or London--or the Black Jack or Drury Lane.' Then we moved to the more commodious chamber, where I soothed her spirits with a cup of tea which is better far than wine or cordials for the refreshment of the mind. Presently she began to recover a little from her disappointment. 'It will be lonely at first,' she said, 'without a single friend, and I suppose that a transported convict--say that for me, Will--it hath a strange sound. It is like a slap in the face--a transported convict----' 'Nay, Jenny, do not say it.'