"Robert!" she said reproachfully, but with the sweet gentleness of her pitying love for the husband irritated, and beyond control of self in his trouble, apparent in her words. "Well, why do you talk so and hesitate?" he cried petulantly. "I will go, dear," she said cheerfully, "and I will plead your cause to the uttermost." "Yes, of course. It will be better that you should go. He likes you, Millicent; he always did like you, and I dare say he will listen to you. I don't know but what it might be wise to knock under to Bayle. But no: I hate that fellow. I always did from the first. Well, leave that now. See Sir Gordon; tell him what I say, that it will be best for the bank. You'll win. Hang it, Millicent, I could not bear this trial: it would kill me." "Robert!" "Ah, well, I'm not going to die yet, and it would be very sad for my handsome little wife to be left a widow if they hang me, or to exist with a live husband serving one-and-twenty years in the bush." "Robert, you will break my heart if you speak like that," panted Millicent. "Ah, well, we must not do that," he cried laughingly. "Look here, though; this barrister who is to defend me, I know him--Granton, Q.C. Did your father instruct him?" "No: he could not. Robert, we are frightfully poor." "Ah! it is a nuisance," he said, "thanks to my enemies; but we'll get through. Now then, who has instructed this man?" "I cannot tell, dear." "I see it all," he said; "it's a plan of the enemy. They employ their own man, and he will sell me, bound hand and foot, to the Philistines." "Oh! Robert, surely no one would be so base." "I don't know," he said. "They want to win. It's Sir Gordon's doing. No, it's Christie Bayle. I'd lay a thousand pounds he has paid the fellow's fees." "Then, Robert, you will not trust him; you will refuse to let him defend you. Husband, my brave, true, innocent husband," she cried, with her pale face flushing, "defend yourself!" "Hush! Go to Sir Gordon at once. Say everything. I must be had out of this, Milly. I cannot stand my trial." She could only nod her acquiescence, for a gaoler had entered to announce that the visit was at an end. Then, as if in a dream, confused, troubled in spirit, and hardly seeing her way for the mist before her eyes, Millicent Hallam followed the gaoler back along the white stone passages and through the clanging gates, to be shut out of the prison and remain in a dream of misery and troubled thought, conscious of only one thing, and that one that a gentle hand had taken her by the arm and led her back to where they waited for the conveyance to take them home.