* * * * *
Marjorie drew a long breath, and passed her hands over her forehead.
"The order?" she said. "What order?"
The girl explained, torrentially. A man had come just now from the
Guildhall; he had asked for Mrs. FitzHerbert; she had gone down into the
hall to see him; and all the rest of the useless details. But the effect
was that leave had been given at last to visit the prisoner--for two
persons, of which Mrs. FitzHerbert must be one; and that they must
present the order to the gaoler before seven o'clock, when they would be
admitted. She looked--such was the constitution of her mind--as happy as
if it were an order for his release. Marjorie drove away the last shreds
of sleep; and kissed her.
"That is very good news," she said. "Now we will begin to do something."
* * * * *
The sun had sunk so far, when they set out at last, as to throw the
whole of the square into golden shade; and, in the narrow, overhung
Friar's Gate, where the windows of the upper stories were so near that a
man might shake hands with his friend on the other side, the twilight
had already begun. They had determined to walk, in order less to attract
attention, in spite of the filth through which they knew they must pass,
along the couple of hundred yards that separated them from the prison.
For every housewife emptied her slops out of doors, and swept her house
(when she did so at all) into the same place: now and again the heaps
would be pushed together and removed, but for the most part they lay
there, bones and rags and rotten fruit,--dusty in one spot, so that all
blew about--dampened in others where a pail or two had been poured
forth.
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