"We got into the train and went as far as Leybridge. There the train stopped. Mr. Lennox told me that the mail train we were to meet had been delayed by an accident, and that we should have to wait some hours at the station. The morning was breaking then, and we were alarmed lest someone should come to the station who might recognize me. Mr. Lennox suggested that, as the morning was bright and pleasant, we should go through the fields, and I gladly consented." All this time the clear, sweet young voice sounded like music in the warmth and silence of the summer air. "We reached the field called Lime Meadow, and stood there, leaning over the stile, when I thought I saw something under a hedge. We went to see. It was a woman who had been sleeping there. My lord, she looked very faint, very wild and weak. We spoke to her. She told us that her name was Anna Barratt, and that she was married, but that she was very unhappy. She was going with her husband to Liverpool. She told us her story, my lord, and it frightened me. She told us that she had once been a bright happy girl at home, and that against her mother's advice she had eloped with the man who had sought her hand, and married him. Her words struck me like a sharp blow. She said it was better to break one's heart at home than to run away from it. Mr. Lennox was very sorry for her; and, when I saw her poor bruised hand lying on the grass, I bound it up. My lord, I asked Mr. Lennox for his handkerchief, and I wrapped it around her hand." There was such a murmur of excitement in the court that the speaker was obliged to pause. "Go on, Miss Vaughan," said the judge. Still looking at him, and him only, she continued: "Mr. Lennox gave her some money. She told us that her husband beat her; that he had bruised her hand, and that she was quite sure he would come back to murder her. Then Mr. Lennox told her, that if she feared that, to get up and come away; he gave her two sovereigns and told her to go to London. He wrote down his address on a piece of folded paper, and told her if she would either come or write to that address, his mother would befriend her. She asked Heaven to bless us, my lord, and turned away her head, as though she were tired. We walked on, and did not see her again." And again Hyacinth paused, while those in court seemed to hang upon the words that came from her lips. "Then, my lord," she continued, "I began to think of what she had said--that it was better to break one's heart at home than to run away from it. All at once the folly and wickedness of what I was about to do appeared to me. I began to cry, and begged of Mr. Lennox to take me home." "A very common termination to an elopement," observed the judge.