“Nothing. I would ask you to see that Pauline comes to no harm, but she can take care of herself. I have nothing to give you in parting. They have taken everything from me.” “What a brute I am! I shall never see you again, and I cannot speak,” sobbed Zachariah. “Speak! What need is there of speaking? What is there which can be said at such a time? To tell you the truth, Coleman, I hardly cared about having you here. I did not want to imperil the calm which is now happily upon me; we all of us have something unaccountable and uncontrollable in us, and I do not know how soon it may wake in me. But I did wish to see you, in order that your mind might be at peace about me. Come, good-bye!” Caillaud put his hand on Zachariah’s shoulder. “This will not do,” he said. “For my sake forbear. I can face what I have to go through next Monday if am not shaken. Come, Pauline, you too, my child, must leave me for a bit.” Zachariah looked at Pauline, who rose and threw her shawl over her shoulders. Her lips were tightly shut, but she was herself. The warder opened the door. Zachariah took his friend’s hand, held it for a moment, and then threw his arms round his neck. There is a pathos in parting which the mere loss through absence does not explain. We all of us feel it, even if there is to be a meeting again in a few months, and we are overcome by incomprehensible emotion when we turn back down the pier, unable any longer to discern the waving of the handkerchief, or when the railway train turns the curve in the cutting and leaves us standing on the platform. Infinitely pathetic, therefore, is the moment when we separate for ever. Caillaud was unsettled for an instant, and then, slowly untwining the embrace, he made a sign to Pauline, who took Zachariah’s hand and led him outside; the heavy well-oiled bolt of the lock shooting back under the key with a smooth strong thud between them. She walked down the corridor alone, not noticing that he had not followed her, and had just passed out of sight when an officer stepped up to him and said: “Your name is Coleman?” “Yes.” “Sorry to hear it. My name is Nadin. You know me, I think. You must consider yourself my prisoner.” Zachariah was in prison for two years. He had not been there three months when his wife died. * * * * Let us now look forward to 1821; let us walk down one of the new streets just beginning to stretch northwards from Pentonville; let us stop opposite a little house, with a little palisade in front, enclosing a little garden five and twenty feet long and fifteen feet broad; let us peep through the chink between the blind and the window. We see Zachariah and Pauline. Another year passes; we peep through the same chink again. A cradle is there, in which lies Marie Pauline Coleman; but where is the mother? She is not there, and the father alone sits watching the child. CHAPTER XVI COWFOLD