he ventured, as an
indirect appeal on Micky's behalf, to add:--"I'm shielding you,
Daverill, and a many wouldn't."

He affected to recognise his indebtedness, but only grudgingly. "You're
what they call a good wife, Polly Daverill. Partner of a cove's joys and
sorrows! Got your marriage lines to show! That's your style. You stick
to that!"

Something in his tone made M'riar say:--"Why do you speak like that? You
know that I have." Her speech did not seem to arise from his words. She
had detected a sneer in them.

"You've got 'em to show.... Ah! But I shouldn't show 'em, if I were
you."

"Am I likely?"

"That's not what I was driving at."

"What do you mean?"

"Shall I tell you, Polly, my angel? Shall I tell you, respectable
married woman?"

"Don't werrit me, Daverill. I don't deserve it of you!"

"Right you are, old Polly! And told you shall be!... Sure you want to
know?... There, there--easy does it! I'm a-telling of you." He suddenly
changed his manner, and spoke quickly, collectedly, drily. "The name on
your stifficate ain't the correct name. _I_ saw to that. Only you
needn't fret your kidneys about it, that I see. You're an immoral woman,
you are! Poor Polly! Feel any different?"

Anyone who knows the superstitious reverence for the "sacred" marriage
tie that obtains among women of M'riar's class and type will understand
her horror and indignation. And all the more if he knows the
extraordinary importance they attach to a certificate which is, after
all, only a guarantee that the marriage-bond is recorded elsewhere, not
the attested record itself. For a moment she was unable to speak, and
when words did come, they were neither protest nor contradiction,
but:--"Let me out! Let me out!"

The convict shifted his chair without rising, and held the door back for
her exit. "Ah," said he, "go and have a look at it!" He had taken her
measure exactly. She went straight upstairs, carrying her candle to the
wardrobe by Dolly's bed, where her few private possessions were hidden
away. Dolly would not wake. If she did, what did it matter? Aunt M'riar
heard a small melodious dream-voice in the pillow say tenderly:--"One
cup wiv soody." It was the rehearsal of that banquet that the great
Censorship had disallowed.

A lock in a drawer, refractory at first, brought to terms at last. A box
found far back, amenable to its key at sight. A still clean document,
found and read by the light of a hurriedly snuffed candle. T