t him and hurried on.

As soon as the crowd round the cottage saw her coming, they divided to
let her pass.

"She's quiet now, miss," said a woman to her significantly, nodding
towards the hovel. "Just after Jenkins got in you could hear her crying
out pitiful."

"That was when they wor a-handcuffin' him," said a man beside her.

Marcella shuddered.

"Will they let me in?" she asked.

"They won't let none ov _us_ in," said the man. "There's Hurd's sister,"
and he pointed to a weeping woman supported by two others. "They've kep'
her out. But here's the inspector, miss; you ask him."

The inspector, a shrewd officer of long experience, fetched in haste
from a mile's distance, galloped up, and gave his horse to a boy.

Marcella went up to him.

He looked at her with sharp interrogation. "You are Miss Boyce? Miss
Boyce of Mellor?"

"Yes, I want to go to the wife; I will promise not to get in your way."

He nodded. The crowd let them pass. The inspector knocked at the door,
which was cautiously unlocked by Jenkins, and the two went in together.

"She's a queer one," said a thin, weasel-eyed man in the crowd to his
neighbour. "To think o' her bein' in it--at this time o' day. You could
see Muster Raeburn was a tellin' of her to go 'ome. But she's allus
pampered them Hurds."

The speaker was Ned Patton, old Patton's son, and Hurd's companion on
many a profitable night-walk. It was barely a week since he had been out
with Hurd on another ferreting expedition, some of the proceeds of which
were still hidden in Patton's outhouse. But at the present moment he was
one of the keenest of the crowd, watching eagerly for the moment when he
should see his old comrade come out, trapped and checkmated, bound
safely and surely to the gallows. The natural love of incident and
change which keeps life healthy had been starved in him by his
labourer's condition. This sudden excitement had made a brute of him.

The man next him grimaced, and took his pipe out of his mouth a moment.

"_She_ won't be able to do nothin' for 'im! There isn't a man nor boy
in this 'ere place as didn't know as ee hated Westall like pison, and
would be as like as not to do for 'im some day. That'll count agen 'im
now terrible strong! Ee wor allus one to blab, ee wor."

"Well, an' Westall said jus' as much!" struck in another voice; "theer
wor sure to be a fight iv ever Westall got at 'im--on the job. You
see--they may bring it in manslarter after al