CHAPTER XLIV.
NEMESIS.
With pallid cheeks and haggard eyes,
And loud laments and heartfelt sighs,
Unpitied, hopeless of relief,
She drinks the cup of bitter grief.
In vain the sigh, in rain the tear,
Compassion never enters here;
But justice clanks the iron chain
And calls forth shame, remorse, and pain.
—Anon
The same carriage that brought Lord Vincent and Mrs. Dugald to the town hall conveyed them from that place to the county jail.
There Lord Vincent finally dismissed it, sending it home to the castle, and instructing Cuthbert to pack up some changes of clothing and his dressing-case and a few books and to bring them to him at the prison.
Mrs. Dugald at the same time stopped crying long enough to order the old man to ask Mrs. MacDonald to put up all that might be necessary to her comfort for a week, and dispatch it by the same messenger that should bring Lord Vincent's effects.
These arrangements concluded, the carriage drove away and Policeman McRae conducted his prisoners into the jail. He took them first into the warden's room, where he produced the warrant for their commital and delivered them up.
The warden, "Auld Saundie Gra'ame," as he was familiarly styled, was a tall, gaunt, hard-favored old Scot, who had been too many years in his present position to be astonished at any description of prisoner that might be confined to his custody. In his public service of more than a quarter of a century he had had turned over to his tender mercies more than one elegantly dressed female, and many more than one titled scamp. So, without evincing the least surprise, he simply took the female prisoner, named in the warrant "Faustina Dugald," to be—just what she was—a fallen angel who had dropped into the clutches of the law; and the male prisoner, named in the warrant "Malcolm Dugald, Viscount Vincent," to be—what he was—a noble rogue, guilty of being found out.
While he was reading the warrants, entering their names in his books, and writing out a receipt for their "bodies," Lord Vincent stood with his fettered hands clasped, his head bowed upon his chest, and his countenance set in grim endurance; and Faustina stood wringing her hands, weeping, and moaning, and altogether making a good deal of noise.