“But what will you do at Chelmsford? How will you live?” asked Madge.
Clara smiled bravely, and threw up her head a little higher. “I have a little money—no, thank you”—as the other made a gesture, as if to reach her purse—“I have more than I need—and I shall take a lodging near—near the prison. I came here, because I wanted to know—to know”—she hesitated, and her voice trailed off, and died away.
“Wanted to know—what?”
“To know if there was any—any message you would wish to send to him,” replied Clara at last, very stiffly, and with a face of scarlet. “I thought maybe that if I could carry—carry some message from you—you, who have the right to send one—it might cheer him, and lead him to think better of the world, when every one is against him. He may not—how should he?—may not think or care anything for what I may say—but you——”
Madge Barnshaw moved forward quickly, and took the girl in her arms. “What angel of God has put such a thought in your heart?” she whispered. “I shall bless you all my life for coming to me like this—for teaching me, out of your own simple faith and loyalty, some faith and loyalty too. Will you promise to write to me, directly you are settled in your new lodging? Will you promise to write often to me—to claim from me anything you may want?”
After a little further hesitation, Clara Siggs promised that she would communicate with her new friend frequently. And then Madge, with her arms still about the girl, whispered her message.
“Tell him—if you will,” she said—“that I love him, and believe in his innocence—that I will believe in that—and in him—until he tells me, with his own lips, that he is guilty!”
Clara promised that the message should be delivered; and, with a parting embrace the two separated—Clara to set forth on her journey; Madge to pace the garden wearily, and, now that she was alone again, with a growing despair.
Having only some five miles to traverse, before coming into the picturesque old town of Chelmsford, Clara Siggs first trod its streets just as the shops were beginning to set forth their wares for the day, and its pavements to echo with the fall of busy feet. Rendered timid by the size of the place, and fearful of attracting attention, she did not care to ask her way to the jail, but wandered about, until the frowning walls of the building looked down upon her. Various notices were posted on a door, setting forth the date of the next assizes, together with other information—only part of which she grasped, in her anxiety, and in the many tumultuous thoughts which stirred her, at the remembrance of how near she was to the place where the man of whom she had come in search lay.
She resolved, for her own comfort and satisfaction, to get a lodging as near to the prison as possible; and, after some little search, came to a decent house in a by-street, in the lower window of which a card announced that a room was to be let. Her hesitating knock at the door was answered promptly, by a tall, thin, angular-looking woman, with very red hair, and a very business-like aspect. She appeared to possess a kindly nature, however, despite her grim appearance; and civilly invited Clara to inspect the room advertised.