“Mother, dear mother!” cried Julia. “This scene was too terrible for you.”
“No, no! I am better now,” said Mrs Hallam hoarsely. “Let us go on. Did you see?” she whispered, turning to Bayle.
“See?” he said reproachfully. “Yes; but I tried so hard to spare you this scene.”
“Yes; but it was to be,” she said in the same hoarse whisper, as, with one hand she held Julia from her, and spoke almost in her companion’s ear. “You did not know him,” she said. “I did; at once.”
“That man?”
“Yes.”
Then, after a painful pause, she added:
“It was Stephen Crellock.”
“Her husband’s associate and friend,” said Bayle, as he stood outside the prison gates waiting; for, after the presentation of the proper forms, Millicent Hallam and her child had been admitted by special permission to see the prisoner named upon their pass, and Christie Bayle remained without, seeing in imagination the meeting between husband, wife, and child, and as he waited, seated on a block of stone, his head went down upon his hands, and his spirit sank very low, for all was dark upon the life-path now ahead.