ly felt. But...'"

"The _Lion's_ home," I said.

It burst upon me that she was--that she must be. Williams--or
Sebright--he was the man, had been speaking up for me. Or Seraphina had
been to the Spanish ambassador.

She was back; I should see her. I started up.

"The _Lion's_ home," I repeated.

The turnkey snarled, "She was posted as overdue three days ago."

I couldn't believe it was true.

"I saw it in the papers," he grumbled on. "I dursn't tell you." He
continued violently, "Blow my dickey. It would make a cat sick."

My sudden exaltation, my sudden despair, gave way to indifference.

"Oh, coming, coming!" he shouted, in answer to an immense bellowing cry
that loomed down the passage without.

I heard him grumble, "Of course, of course. I shan't make a penny." Then
he caught hold of my arm. "Here, come along, someone to see you in the
press-yard."

He pulled me along the noisome, black warren of passages, slamming the
inner door viciously behind him.

The press-yard--the exercising ground for the condemned--was empty; the
last batch had gone out, _my_ batch would be the next to come in, the
turnkey said suddenly. It was a well of a place, high black walls going
up into the desolate, weeping sky, and quite tiny. At one end was a sort
of slit in the wall, closed with tall, immense windows. From there a
faint sort of rabbit's squeak was going up through the immense roll and
rumble of traffic on the other side of the wall. The turnkey pushed me
towards it.

"Go on," he said. "I'll not listen; I ought to. But, curse me, I'm not
a bad sort," he added gloomily; "I dare say you'll make it worth my
while."

I went and peered through the bars at a faint object pressed against
other bars in just another slit across a black passage.

"What, Jackie, boy; what, Jackie?" Blinking his eyes, as if the dim
light were too strong for them, a thin, bent man stood there in a
brilliant new court coat. His face was meagre in the extreme, the nose
and cheekbones polished and transparent like a bigaroon cherry. A thin
tuft of reddish hair was brushed back from his high, shining forehead.
It was my father. He exclaimed:

"What, Jackie, boy! How old you look!" then waved his arm towards me.
"In trouble?" he said. "You in trouble?"

He rubbed his thin hands together, and looked round the place with a
cultured man's air of disgust. I said, "Father!" and he suddenly began
to talk very fast and agitatedly of what he had been