a sudden silence; it was like stepping from
the outer air into a diving-bell.

'Nan, I want you to read this letter, and tell me if it is true.'

He gave it her; she read it; then slowly, very slowly, the one hand
holding the letter dropped, and she stood there silent, her eyes
downcast.

'Nan, I have loved you since the very first night I ever saw you. I
tried to make believe that Madge was you; Madge herself has saved us
from what might have happened through that desperate mistake. And you,
Nan--you are free now--there is no one in the way--is it true what
Edith says?'

'It isn't quite true,' said Nan, in a very low voice; and her fingers
were making sad work with Madge's letter. 'I mean--if she means--what
you can say--since the very first night that we met. But I think at
least--it is true--since'--and here Nan looked up at him with her
faithful eyes, and in them there was something that was neither
laughing nor crying, but was strangely near to both--'since--since ever
we parted at Como!'

CHAPTER XXIV.

'BRING HOME THE BRIDE SO FAIR!'

'Poor Jack!' that was all Madge's cry. She did not care what
arrangement was being got up by the parents and guardians interested.
She did not want her fortune settled on herself. To her it did not
matter whether the brewery was in Southampton or in Jerusalem. All her
piteous appeal was that her dear Jack should be got out of prison; and
the opinion that she had formed of the gross tyranny, and cruelty, and
obstinacy of English law was of a character that dare not be set forth
here.

'What is the use of it?' she would say. 'What good can it do except to
keep people miserable?'

'My dear child,' the sighing and sorely-troubled mother would answer,
'the Vice-Chancellor has admitted that it can do no good. But the
authority of the Court must be vindicated----'

'It is nothing but a mean and contemptible revenge?' exclaimed Madge.

However, Mr. Tom took a much more cool and business-like view of the
matter.

'When he is let out,' he remarked, 'I hope the Vice-chancellor will
make the other side pay the costs of all these applications and
proceedings. I don't see why we should pay, simply because Jack
Hanbury went and made an ass of himself.'

'I beg you to remember that you are speaking of my husband?' said
Madge, with a sudden fierceness.

'Oh, well, but didn't he?' Mr. Tom said. 'What was the use of bolting
like that, when he knew he must be laid b