Mrs. Pen read this alarming missive two or three times over before she could understand what it meant. John Musgrave! By degrees it became clear to her. This was why her husband deserted her, and spent his whole day at the Castle. He a magistrate, whose first duty it was to send John Musgrave to prison. The penalty--what was the penalty? The poor woman was in such a frenzy of agitation and terror that she did not know what to believe. What could they do to him if it was found out? She went to the window and looked for him; she went out and walked to the garden gate; she was not able to keep still. The penalty--what was it? Could they put him in prison instead of the criminal he allowed to go free? That seemed the most natural thing, and imagination conjured up before her the dreadful scene of Mr. Pen’s arrest, perhaps when he was going to church, perhaps when the house was full of people--everybody seeing--everybody knowing it. Mrs. Pen saw her husband dragged along the road in handcuffs before she came to an end of her imaginations. Was there nothing she could do to save him? She was ready to put herself in the breach, to say, like a heroine, “Take me, and let him go free?” but it did not appear to her likely that the myrmidons of the law would pay any attention to such a touching interposition. Then it occurred to her to look who it was, a thing she had not noticed at first, who had sent this kind warning. But this alarmed her more and more. It was some one who called himself “Friend,” who had taken the trouble from a distant place in the midland counties to telegraph thus to Mr. Pennithorne. A friend--it was then an anonymous warning, a very alarming thing indeed to the vulgar mind. Mrs. Pen worked herself up into a state of intense nervous agitation. She sent for the gardener that she might send him at once to the Castle for her husband. But before he came another train of reflections came across her mind. John Musgrave was her William’s friend. He was devoted to the family generally, and to this member of it in particular. Was he not capable of going to prison--of letting himself be handcuffed and dragged along the public road, and cast into a dungeon, rather than give up his friend to justice? Oh, what could the poor woman do? If she could but take some step--do something to save him before he knew.