Madame shook her head. 'At least,' she said, 'we must do what we can to protect ourselves.' She rose. 'I am going now to get that money. You shall hear from me in a day or two. Perhaps it may take a week before you are finally released. But keep up your hearts.'
She took the child again and kissed him. Then she gave him back to his mother.
'You are a good woman,' she said. 'Your face is good: your voice is good: what you say is good. But, remember. Add to what you call the protection of the Lord a few precautions. To stand between such an one as Probus and the money that he is hunting is like standing between a tigress and her prey. He will have no mercy: there is no wickedness that he will hesitate to devise: what he will do next, I know not, but it will be something that belongs to his master, the Devil.'
'The Lord will protect us,' Alice repeated, laying her hand on the flaxen hair of her child.
We stared at each other, when she was gone. 'Will,' asked Alice, with suffused eyes and dropping voice. 'Is she an angel from Heaven?'
'An angel, doubtless—but not from Heaven—yet. My dear, it is the actress who charmed us when we went to the Play—on our wedding-day. It is Miss Jenny Wilmot herself.'
'Oh! If all actresses are like her! Yet they say——Will, she shall have, at least, our prayers——'
Three or four days later—the time seemed many years—an attorney came to see me. Not such an attorney as Mr. Probus: a gentleman of open countenance and pleasant manners. He came to tell me that my business was done, and that after certain dues were paid—which were provided for—I could walk out of the prison.
'Sir,' I said, I beg you to convey to Miss Jenny Wilmot, my benefactress, my heartfelt gratitude.'