behind
her. William handed her the telegram, his own red face full of
understanding. Marcella took it, commanded herself till the boy was out
of sight and hearing again, then sank down on the grass to read it.

"All over. The Home Secretary's official refusal to interfere with
sentence sent to Widrington to-day. Accept my sorrow and sympathy."

She crushed it in her hand, raising her head mechanically. Before her
lay that same shallow cup of ploughed land stretching from her father's
big wood to the downs, on the edge of which Hurd had plied his ferrets
in the winter nights. But to-day the spring worked in it, and breathed
upon it. The young corn was already green in the furrows; the
hazel-catkins quivered in the hedge above her; larks were in the air,
daisies in the grass, and the march of sunny clouds could be seen in the
flying shadows they flung on the pale greens and sheeny purples of the
wide treeless basin.

Human helplessness, human agony--set against the careless joy of
nature--there is no new way of feeling these things. But not to have
felt them, and with the mad, impotent passion and outcry which filled
Marcella's heart at this moment, is never to have risen to the full
stature of our kind.

* * * * *

"Marcella, it is my strong wish--my command--that you do _not_ go out to
the village to-night."

"I must go, papa."

It was Thursday night--the night before the Friday morning fixed for
Hurd's execution. Dinner at Mellor was just over. Mr. Boyce, who was
standing in front of the fire, unconsciously making the most of his own
inadequate height and size, looked angrily at his stately daughter. She
had not appeared at dinner, and she was now dressed in the long black
cloak and black hat she had worn so constantly in the last few weeks.
Mr. Boyce detested the garb.

"You are making yourself _ridiculous_, Marcella. Pity for these wretched
people is all very well, but you have no business to carry it to such a
point that you--and we--become the talk, the laughing-stock of the
county. And I should like to see you, too, pay some attention to Aldous
Raeburn's feelings and wishes."

The admonition, in her father's mouth, would almost have made her laugh,
if she could have laughed at anything. But, instead, she only repeated:

"I must go, I have explained to mamma."

"Evelyn! why do you permit it?" cried Mr. Boyce, turning aggressively to
his wife.

"Marcella explained to me