"The truth!" she cried fiercely. "He knew you better than I. He warned me against you. His dislike had cause. I, poor, weak, trusting woman, believed you to be our friend, and let you crawl and enlace yourself about our innocent child's heart, while all the time you were forming your plans, and waiting for your chance to strike!" "Mrs Hallam," said Bayle calmly, and with a voice full of pity, "you do not know what you are saying." "Not know! when my poor husband told me all!--how you waited until he was in difficulties, and then plotted with that wretched menial Thickens to overthrow him! I know you now: cowardly, cruel man! Unworthy of a thought! But let me tell you that you win no triumph. You thought to separate us--to make the whole world turn from him whom you have cast into prison. You have succeeded in tightening the bonds between us. The trouble will pass as soon as my husband's innocency is shown, while your conduct will cling to you, and show itself like some stain!" A look as angry as her own came over his countenance, but it passed in a moment, and he said gravely: "I came to offer you my sympathy and help in this time of need." "Your help, your sympathy!" cried Millicent scornfully. "You, who planned, here, in my presence, with Sir Gordon, my husband's ruin! Leave this house, sir! Stay! I forgot. By your machinations you are master here. Mother, father, let us go. The world is wide, and heaven will not let such villainy triumph in the end." "Oh, hush! hush!" exclaimed Bayle sternly. "Mrs Hallam, you know not what you say. Doctor, come on to me, I wish to see you. Dear Mrs Luttrell, let me assist you all I can. Good-bye! God help you in your trouble. Good-bye!" He bent down and kissed the old lady; and as he pressed her hand she clung to his, and kissed it in return. "Good-bye, Mrs Hallam," he said, holding out his hand once more. She turned from him with a look of disgust and loathing, and he went slowly out, as he had come, with his head bent, along the road, and on to the market-place. VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER FIFTEEN. A CRITICAL TIME. There was only one bit of business going on in King's Castor that morning among the mechanics, and that was where two carpenters were busy nailing boards across the gaping windows and broken door of Hallam's house. The ivy about the hall window was all scorched, and the frames of that and two windows above were charred, but only the hall, staircase, and one room had been burned before the fire was extinguished. The greater part of the place, though, was a wreck, the mob having wreaked their vengeance upon the furniture when Hallam was snatched from their hands by the law; and for about an hour the self-constituted avengers of the customers at Dixons' Bank had behaved like Goths.