cy increased; each day
seemed to bring a heavier furrow to his brow, an added weight to his
lagging steps. He avoided as much as possible all meetings with his
wife, who, on the contrary, recovered stronger courage with the flight
of time, but whose feverish interest in his exertions was now
transferred to some secret plans that she was for ever discussing with
Rene. The prisoner himself showed great calmness.

"They will sentence me of course," he said quietly to Adrian, "but
whether they will hang me is another question. I don't think that my
hour has come yet or that the cord is twisted which will hang Jack
Smith."

In other moods, he would ridicule Sir Adrian's labours in his cause
with the most gentle note of affectionate mockery. But, from the
desire doubtless to save one so disinterested and unworldly from any
accusation of complicity, he was silent upon the schemes on which he
pinned his hopes of escape.

The first meeting of the friends after the scene at Scarthey had been,
of course, painful to both.

When he entered the cell, Adrian had stretched out his hand in
silence, but Captain Jack held his own pressed to his side.

"It is like you to come," he said gloomily, "but you cannot shake the
hand that stifled your brother's life out of him. And I should do it
again, Adrian! Mark you, I am not repentant!"

"Give me your hand, Jack," said Adrian steadfastly. "I am not of those
who shift responsibility from the dead to the living. You were
grievously treated. Oh, give me your hand, friend, can I think of
anything now but your peril and your truth to me?"

For an instant still the younger man hesitated and inquiringly raised
his eyes laden with anxious trouble, to the elder man's face.

"My wife has told me all," said Sir Adrian, turning his head to hide
his twitching lip.

And then Jack Smith's hand leaped out to meet his friend's upon an
impulse of warm sympathy, and the two faced each other, looking the
words they could not utter.

* * * * *

The year eighteen hundred and fifteen which delivered England at last
from the strain of outlandish conflict saw a revival of official
activity concerning matters of more homely interest. The powers that
were awoke to the necessity, among other things, of putting a stop by
the most stringent means to the constant and extensive leakage in the
national revenue proceeding from the organisation of free traders or
smugglers.

Afte