"Can't I come with you? I want to see him too."
"I cannot take you with me, Minna, but I will take your love. I think it would please papa to know you sent it."
"Of course you are to tell papa I love him. He knows I do. And, mamma, you're to give him that." The child kissed her mother. "And you're to tell him that he is to come back soon."
Mrs. Tennant went with the little one downstairs, not daring to trust herself in further speech. Her mother came to receive the child, and to put to her a last inquiry.
"Are you quite sure, Lucy, that you would not like to have me with you--nor any one--even as far as Lewes? Consider, dear, all you are undertaking, and think before you speak." Mrs. Tennant's answer was quietly conclusive. "I would rather go quite alone, mother, thanking you." There was a knocking at the hall door. Since bad news had come crowding so fast upon the household, every fresh knock had seemed to be the precursor of more ill-tidings. The two women looked at each other with frightened faces, a question in their very silence. While they still were looking there came, bursting into the room, no less a personage than that eminent counsel, Bates, Q.C., who had defended Mr. Tennant at his trial.
Mr. Bates seemed to be in a condition of very unlawyerlike excitement.
"Mrs. Tennant, I bring you good news!"
Mrs. Tennant shrunk back.
"Good news! For me!"
"The best of all possible news. I have only just heard it. I have come rushing off at once to tell you. Your husband is pardoned!"