e
and even an amusing affair for all save Sir Nicholas. It was so easy to
provoke him; he was so simple and passionate that they could get almost
anything they wanted out of him by a little adroit baiting; and more than
once his examination formed a welcome and humorous entr'acte between two
real tragedies. Sir Nicholas, of course, never suspected for a moment
that he was affording any amusement to any one. He thought their weary
laughter to be sardonic and ironical, and he looked upon himself as a
very desperate fellow indeed; and wrote glowing accounts of it all to his
wife, full of apostrophic praises to God and the saints, in a hand that
shook with excitement and awe at the thought of the important scenes in
which he played so prominent a part.

But there was no atmosphere of humour about Mr. Stewart. He had
disappeared from Sir Nicholas' sight on their arrival at the Marshalsea,
and they had not set eyes on one another since; nor could all the
knight's persuasion and offer of bribes make his gaoler consent to take
any message or scrap of paper between them. He would not even answer more
than the simplest inquiries about him,--that he was alive and in the
Tower, and so forth; and Sir Nicholas prayed often and earnestly for that
deliberate and vivacious young man who had so charmed and interested them
all down at Great Keynes, and who had been so mysteriously engulfed by
the sombre majesty of the law.

"I fear," he wrote to Lady Maxwell, "I fear that _our friend_ must be
sick or dying. But I can hear no news of him; when I am allowed sometimes
to walk in the court or on the leads he is never there. My _attendant_
Mr. Jakes looks glum and says nothing when I ask him how my friend does.
My dearest, do not forget him in your prayers nor your old loving husband
either."

One evening late in October Mr. Jakes did not come as usual to bring Sir
Nicholas his supper at five o'clock; the time passed and still he did not
come. This was very unusual. Presently Mrs. Jakes appeared instead,
carrying the food which she set down at the door while she turned the key
behind her. Sir Nicholas rallied her on having turned gaoler; but she
turned on him a face with red eyes and lined with weeping.

"O Sir Nicholas," she said, for these two were good friends, "what a
wicked place this is! God forgive me for saying so; but they've had that
young man down there since two o'clock; and Jakes is with them to help;
and he told me to come up