too, to make me content with the jury I had had. But the warmth of
the place was pleasant, and I elbowed my way forward to the counter.

There was a woman standing by the door as I entered, who looked
curiously at me for a moment, then turned to nudge a man at her side,
and whisper. The whisper grew as I pressed forward, and before I
could reach the counter a hand was laid on my shoulder from behind.
I turned.

"Well?" said I.

It was a heavy-looking drover that had touched me.

"Are you the chap that was tried to-day for murder of Jeweller Todd?"
he asked.

"Well?" said I again, but I could see the crowd falling back, as if I
was a leper, at his question.

"Well? 'Taint well then, as I reckon, to be making so free with
respectable folk."

There was a murmur of assent from the mouths turned towards me.
The landlord came forward from behind the bar.

"I was acquitted," I urged defiantly.

"Ac-quitted!" said he, with big scorn in the syllables. "Hear im
now--'ac-quitted!' Landlord, is this a respectable house?"

The landlord gave his verdict.

"H'out yer goes, and damn yer impudence!"

I looked round, but their faces were all dead against me.

"H'out yer goes!" repeated the landlord. "And think yerself lucky it
aint worse," added the drover.

With no further defence I slunk out into the night once more.

A small crowd of children (Heaven knows whence or how they gathered)
followed me up the court and out into the street. Their numbers
swelled as I went on, and some began to hoot and pelt me; but when I
gained the top of the hill, and a lonelier district, I turned and
struck among them with my stick. It did my heart good to hear their
screams.

After that I was let alone, and tramped forward past the scattered
houses, towards the open country and the moors. Up here there was
scarcely any fog, but I could see it, by the rising moon, hanging
like a shroud over the town below. The next town was near upon
twelve miles off, but I do not remember that I thought of getting so
far. I could not have thought at all, in fact, or I should hardly
have taken the high-road upon which the jeweller had been stopped and
murdered.

There was a shrewd wind blowing, and I shivered all over; but the
cold at my heart was worse, and my hate of the man who had set it
there grew with every step. I thought of the four months and more
which parted the two lives of Gabriel Foot, and what I should make of
the new one