"It's very, very nice of you to ask us," she said, in a voice of honey, "but, unfortunately, we're leaving this afternoon."
"Well, at any rate, let's lunch together. No, of course; too late for that. Well, look here, you've seen the castle, of course; come and see over the prison. I'm governor there, for my sins. Come and let me show you my prison!"
His simple pride in the only sight he had to show prevailed even against the shrinking she felt and did not wholly understand.
"When are you leaving? The six o'clock train? Plenty of time. We've made wonderful reforms, I can tell you. The cells are pictures, perfect pictures. 'Pon my word, I never was so glad to see any one. And so you're married. Dear, dear, dear! Makes me feel an old boy, that it does! The young ones growing up around us—eh, what?"
He led the way out of the castle, and Edward and Katherine exchanged behind his cordial back glances almost of despair. They had not wanted to leave Caernarvon, but Edward could only bless Katherine for her decision. The relations of Mr. and Mrs. Basingstoke could never have stood the affectionate cross-questionings of Mrs. Bertram. They must go; Katherine was right.
Katherine, meantime, was wishing she had invented a headache, an appointment at the local dentist's, had even simulated a swoon at Colonel Bertram's feet, before she had consented to visit a prison.
From the first moment of her entrance there the prison appalled her. It was a very nice prison, as prisons go. But the grating at the door, the locks that clicked, the polished keys, the polished handcuffs, the prison records which their host exhibited with so much ingenuous enthusiasm; the cells, one little cage after another in which human birds were pent. . . .
"What have they all done?" she asked, as they walked along a stone-paved gallery; and wished she had not asked, for the details of horrible crimes were the last things she wished to hear.
"Oh, petty felonies, mostly," said the governor, airily.