“You forced me to this,” he said hoarsely, “and you will hate me more for giving you this pain.”
“No,” she said, speaking in the same unnaturally calm, strained manner. “No: for I have misjudged you, Christie Bayle. Boy and man, you were always true to me. And—and—he is condemned?”
His eyes alone spoke, and then she tottered as if she would have fallen, but he caught her, and placed her in a chair.
“Yes: I know—I knew it must be,” she said with her eyes half-closed. “Every one will know now!”
“Let me call your father in?” he whispered.
“No: not yet. I have something to say,” she murmured almost in a whisper. “If—I die—my little child—Christie Bayle? She—she loves you!”
Millicent Hallam’s eyes filled up the gaps in her feeble speech, and Christie Bayle read her wish as if it had been sounded trumpet-tongued in his ears.
“Yes; I understand. I will,” he said in a voice that was more convincing than if he had spoken on oath.
By that time the news which the postboys had caught as it ran from lip to lip, before Christie Bayle could force his way through the crowd at Lindum assize court, was flashing, as such news can flash through a little inquisitive town like Castor, and, almost at the same moment as Christie Bayle made his promise, old Gemp stumbled into Gorringe’s shop to point at him and pant out:
“Transportation for life!”