a stone's throw of
the door she shrank back. Perhaps it struck her, as it struck Marcella,
that every face was the face of a foe. Marcella ran to the door as the
inspector stepped out, and locked it after him. Mrs. Hurd, hiding
herself behind a bit of baize curtain, watched the two policemen mount
with Hurd into the fly that was waiting, and then followed it with her
eyes along the bit of straight road, uttering sounds the while of low
anguish, which wrung the heart in Marcella's breast. Looking back in
after days it always seemed to her that for this poor soul the true
parting, the true wrench between life and life, came at this moment.

She went up to her, her own tears running over.

"You must come and lie down," she said, recovering herself as quickly as
possible. "You and the children are both starved, and you will want your
strength if you are to help him. I will see to things."

She put the helpless woman on the wooden settle by the fireplace,
rolling up her cloak to make a pillow.

"Now, Willie, you sit by your mother. Daisy, where's the cradle? Put the
baby down and come and help me make the fire."

The dazed children did exactly as they were told, and the mother lay
like a log on the settle. Marcella found coal and wood under Daisy's
guidance, and soon lit the fire, piling on the fuel with a lavish hand.
Daisy brought her water, and she filled the kettle and set it on to
boil, while the little girl, still sobbing at intervals like some little
weeping automaton, laid the breakfast. Then the children all crouched
round the warmth, while Marcella rubbed their cold hands and feet, and
"mothered" them. Shaken as she was with emotion and horror, she was yet
full of a passionate joy that this pity, this tendance was allowed to
her. The crushing weight of self-contempt had lifted. She felt morally
free and at ease.

Already she was revolving what she could do for Hurd. It was as clear
as daylight to her that there had been no murder but a free fight--an
even chance between him and Westall. The violence of a hard and
tyrannous man had provoked his own destruction--so it stood, for her
passionate protesting sense. That at any rate must be the defence, and
some able man must be found to press it. She thought she would write to
the Cravens and consult them. Her thoughts carefully avoided the names
both of Aldous Raeburn and of Wharton.

She was about to make the tea when some one knocked at the door. It
proved to