then, but I'll mak thee, and quick."

The struggle was short. The girl was flung aside into the road.

Mrs. Garth rose from her knees with a bitter smile on her lips. "I mak
na doubt 'at thou wouldn't be ower keen to try the same agen," she
said, going off. "Go thy ways to Doomsdale, my lass, and ax yer next
batch of questions there. I've just coom't frae it mysel', do you
know?"

Late the same evening, as the weary sun went down behind the smithy,
Rotha hastened from the cottage at Fornside back to the house on the
Moss at Shoulthwaite. She had a bundle of papers beneath her cloak,
and the light of hope in her face.

The clew was found.

CHAPTER XLV. THE CONDEMNED IN DOOMSDALE.

When Ralph, accompanied by Sim, arrived at Carlisle and surrendered
himself to the high sheriff, Wilfrey Lawson, he was at once taken
before the magistrates, and, after a brief examination, was ordered to
wait his trial at the forthcoming assizes. He was then committed to
the common gaol, which stood in the ruins of the old convent of Black
Friars. The cell he occupied was shared by two other prisoners--a man
and a woman. It was a room of small dimensions, down a small flight of
steps from the courtyard, noisome to the only two senses to which it
appealed--gloomy and cold. It was entered from a passage in an outer
cell, and the doors to both were narrow, without so much as the
ventilation of an eye-hole, strongly bound with iron, and double
locked. The floor was the bare earth, and there was no furniture
except such as the prisoners themselves provided. A little window near
to the ceiling admitted all the light and air and discharged all the
foul vapor that found entrance and egress.

The prisoners boarded themselves. For an impost of 7s per week, an
under gaoler undertook to provide food for Ralph and to lend him a
mattress. His companions in this wretched plight were a miserable pair
who were suspected of a barbarous and unnatural murder. They had been
paramours, and their victim had been the woman's husband. Once and
again they had been before the judges, and though none doubted their
guilt, they had been sent back to await more conclusive or more
circumstantial evidence. Whatever might hitherto have been the ardor
of their guilty passion, their confinement together in this foul cell
had resulted in a mutual loathing. Within the narrow limits of these
walls neither seemed able to support the barest contact with the
other. T