Yet all the while his eyes strayed to
Marjorie as if there was something he would ask of her, but could not.
He seemed completely unnerved, and for the first time in her life the
girl began to understand something of what gaol-life must signify. She
had heard of death and the painful Question; and she had perceived
something of the heroism that was needed to meet them; yet she had never
before imagined what that life of confinement might be, until she had
watched this man, whom she had known in the world as a curt and almost
masterful gentleman, careful of his dress, particular of the deference
that was due to him, now become this worn prisoner, careless of his
appearance, who stroked his mouth continually, once or twice gnawing his
nails, who paced about in this abominable hole, where a tumbled heap of
straw and blankets represented a bed, and a rickety table with a chair
and a stool his sole furniture. It seemed as if a husk had been stripped
from him, and a shrinking creature had come out of it which at present
she could not recognise.
Then he suddenly wheeled on her, and for the first time some kind of
forcefulness appeared in his manner.
"And my Uncle Bassett?" he cried abruptly. "What is he doing all this
while?"
Marjorie said that Mr. Bassett had been most active on his behalf with
the lawyers, but, for the present, was gone back again to his estates.
Mr. Thomas snorted impatiently.
"Yes, he is gone back again," he cried, "and he leaves me to rot here!
He thinks that I can bear it for ever, it seems!"
"Mr.
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