"I don't understand," Sophia muttered, her heart sinking.
"Oh, don't come the innocent over us!" the man answered coarsely. "Here's the capias. Forty-eight, seven, six, debt and costs. It's my house or the Marshalsea. One or the other, and be quick about it. If you've the cash you'd better come to me."
"There's some mistake," Sophia gasped, involuntarily retreating into the furthest corner of the coach. "You take me for some one else."
The bailiffs--for such they were--laughed at the joke. "I take you for Mrs. Clark, alias Grocott, alias anything else you please," the spokesman answered. "Come, no nonsense, mistress; it's not the first time you've been behind bars. I warrant with that face you'll soon find some one to open the door for you."
"But I'm not Mrs. Clark," Sophia protested. "I'm not indeed."
"Pooh, pooh!"
"I tell you I am not Mrs. Clark!" she cried. "Indeed, indeed, I am not! It has nothing to do with me," she continued desperately. "Please let me go on." And in great distress she tried to close the door on them.
The bailiff prevented her. "Come, no nonsense, mistress," he repeated. "These tricks won't serve you. We were waiting for you at the Ipswich stage; you got the start there, and very cleverly, I will allow. But my mate got the number of the coach, and if we had not overtaken you here we'd have nabbed you in Davies Street. You see we know all about you, and where you were bound. Now where's it to be?"
Sophia, at the mention of Davies Street, began to doubt her own identity; but still repeated, with the fierceness of despair, that she was not the person they sought. "I am not Mrs. Clark!" she cried. "I only took this coach in Brewer Street. You can ask the coachman."
"Ah, I might, but I shouldn't get the truth!"