her we might give her the mains'le."

With much pulling at ropes and with many strange nautical cries the
father and the son, aided by their passengers, succeeded in raising the
great brown sail. The little vessel lay over under the pressure of the
wind until her lee bulwark was flush with the water, and the deck lay at
such an angle that it was only by holding on to the weather rigging
that the two gentlemen could retain their footing. The wild waves
swirled and foamed round her bows, and beat at her quarter and beneath
her counter, but the little boat rose gallantly to them, and shot away
through the storm, running due eastward.

"It ain't much of a cabin," Sampson said apologetically. "Such as it
is, you'll find it down there."

"Thank you," answered Ezra; "we'll stay on deck at present. When ought
we to get to the Downs?"

"At this rate we'll be there by to-morrow afternoon."

"Thank you."

The fisherman and his boy took turn and turn, one steering and the other
keeping a look-out forward and trimming the sails. The two passengers
crouched huddled together against the weather rail. They were each too
occupied with thought to have time for speech. Suddenly, after passing
Claxton and rounding the point, they came in full sight of the Priory,
every window of which was blazing with light. They could see dark
figures passing to and fro against the glare.

"Look there," Girdlestone whispered.

"Ay, the police have not taken long," his son answered.
John Girdlestone was silent for some time. Then he suddenly dropped his
face upon his hands, and sobbed hoarsely for the first and last time in
his career.

"I am thinking of Monday in Fenchurch Street," he said. "My God! is
this the end of a life of hard work! Oh, my business, my business, that
I built up myself! It will break my heart!"

And so through the long cold winter's night they sat together while the
boat ploughed its way down the English Channel. Who shall say what
their thoughts were as they stared with pale, rigid faces into the
darkness, while their minds, perhaps, peered even more cheerlessly into
the dismal obscurity which lay over their future. Better be the
lifeless wreck whom they have carried up to the Priory, than be torn as
these men are torn, by the demons of fear and remorse and grief, and
crushed down by the weight of a sin-stained and irrevocable past.

CHAPTER XLVII.

LAW AND ORDER.

The ruffian Burt was so horror-