nd voice to gasp out:--"Oh, Daverill, you can't mean it! Give it
me back--oh, give it me back! Will you give it me back for money?... Oh,
how can you have the heart?..."

"Let's see the money. How much have you got? Put it down on this here
table." He seemed to imply that he was open to negotiation.

With a trembling hand M'riar got at her purse, and emptied it on the
table. "That is every penny," she said--"every penny I have in the
house. Now give it me!"

"Half a bean, six bob, and a mag." He picked up and pocketed the sixteen
shillings and a halfpenny, so described.

"Now you _will_ give it back to me?" cried poor Aunt M'riar, with a wail
in her voice that must have reached Dolly, for a pathetic cry answered
her from the room above.

"Some o' these days," was all his answer, imperturbably. "There's your
kid squealing. Time I was off.... What's that?"

Was it a new terror, or a thing to thank God for? Uncle Mo's big voice
at the end of the court.

The convict made for the street-door--peeped out furtively. "He's turned
in at young Ikey's," said he. Then to M'riar, using an epithet to her
that cannot be repeated:--"Down on your knees and pray that your bully
may stick there till I'm clear, or ... Ah!--smell that!" It was his
knife-point, open, close to her face. In a moment he was out in the
Court, now so far clear of fog that the arch was visible, beyond the
light that shone out of Ragstroar's open door.

Another moment, and M'riar knew what to do. Save Mo, or die attempting
it! If the chances seemed to point to the convict passing the house
unobserved she would do nothing.

That was not to be the way of it. He was still some twenty paces short
of Ragstroar's when old Mo was coming out at the door with the light in
it.

Aunt M'riar, quick on the heels of the convict, who was rather bent on
noiselessness than speed, had flung herself upon him--so little had he
foreseen such an attack--before he could turn to repel it. She clung to
him from behind with all her dead-weight, encumbering that hand with the
knife as best she might. She screamed loud with all the voice she
had:--"Mo--Mo--he has a knife--he has a knife!" Mo flung away the coat
on his arm, and ran shouting. "Leave hold of him, M'riar--keep _off_
him--leave _hold_!" His big voice echoed down the Court, resonant with
sudden terror on her behalf.

But her ears were deaf to any voice but that of her heart, crying almost
audibly:--"Save _him_! Never