ch people should be asked to
sign; as long as the name could be written at all, she was not
particular whose it was.

Dr. May made his patients agree to accept as his substitute Dr. Spencer
or Mr. Wright, to whom Henry Ward intended to resign practice and
house. He himself was to go to London for a couple of nights with
George Rivers, who was exceedingly gratified at having the charge of
him all to himself, and considered that the united influence of member
and mayor must prevail. Dr. Spencer, on the contrary, probably by way
of warning, represented Mr. Mayor as ruining everything by his headlong
way of setting about it, declaring that he would abuse everybody all
round, and assure the Home Secretary, that, as sure as his name was
Dick May, it was quite impossible the boy could have hurt a fly; though
a strict sense of truth would lead him to add the next moment, that he
was terribly passionate, and had nearly demolished his brother.

Dr. May talked of his caution and good behaviour, which, maybe, were
somewhat increased by this caricature, but he ended by very hearty
wishes that these were the times of Jeanie Deans; if the pardon
depended on our own good Queen, he should not doubt of it a moment.
Why, was not the boy just the age of her own son?

And verily there was no one in the whole world whom poor Averil envied
like Jeanie Deans.

So member and mayor went to London together, and intense were the
prayers that speeded them and followed them. The case was laid before
the Home Secretary, the petitions presented, and Dr. May said all that
man might say on ground where he felt as if over-partisanship might be
perilous. The matter was to have due consideration: nothing more
definite or hopeful could be obtained; but there could be no doubt that
this meant a real and calm re-weighing of the evidence, with a
consideration of all the circumstances. It was something for the
Doctor that a second dispassionate study should be given to the case,
but his heart sank as he thought of that cold, hard statement of
evidence, without the counter testimony of the honest, tearless eyes
and simple good faith of the voice and tone.

And when he entered the railway carriage on his road home, the
newspaper that George Rivers attentively pressed upon him bore the
information that Wednesday, the 21st, would be the day, according to
usage, for the execution of the condemned criminal, Leonard Axworthy
Ward. If it had been for the ex