“You don’t mean to say that they have sent him to prison?” she exclaimed breathlessly.

“Not as a convicted prisoner, you know.  He is merely detained pending his trial.”

“But in prison?”

“Yes,” I was forced to admit; “in Holloway prison.”

She looked me stonily in the face for some seconds, pale and wide-eyed, but silent; then, with a sudden catch in her breath, she turned away, and, grasping the edge of the mantel-shelf, laid her head upon her arm and burst into a passion of sobbing.

Now I am not, in general, an emotional man, nor even especially impulsive; but neither am I a stock or a stone or an effigy of wood; which I most surely must have been if I could have looked without being deeply moved on the grief, so natural and unselfish, of this strong, brave, loyal-hearted woman.  In effect, I moved to her side and, gently taking in mine the hand that hung down, murmured some incoherent words of consolation in a particularly husky voice.

Presently she recovered herself somewhat and softly withdrew her hand, as she turned towards me drying her eyes.

“You must forgive me for distressing you, as I fear I have,” she said; “for you are so kind, and I feel that you are really my friend and Reuben’s.”

“I am indeed, dear Miss Gibson,” I replied, “and so, I assure you, is my colleague.”

“I am sure of it,” she rejoined.  “But I was so unprepared for this—­I cannot say why, excepting that I trusted so entirely in Dr. Thorndyke—­and it is so horrible and, above all, so dreadfully suggestive of what may happen.  Up to now the whole thing has seemed like a nightmare—­terrifying, but yet unreal.  But now that he is actually in prison, it has suddenly become a dreadful reality and I am overwhelmed with terror.  Oh! poor boy!  What will become of him?  For pity’s sake, Dr. Jervis, tell me what is going to happen.”

What could I do?  I had heard Thorndyke’s words of encouragement to Reuben and knew my colleague well enough to feel sure that he meant all he had said.  Doubtless my proper course would have been to keep my own counsel and put Miss Gibson off with cautious ambiguities.  But I could not; she was worthy of more confidence than that.

“You must not be unduly alarmed about the future,” I said.  “I have it from Dr. Thorndyke that he is convinced of Reuben’s innocence, and is hopeful of being able to make it clear to the world.  But I did not have this to repeat,” I added, with a slight qualm of conscience.

“I know,” she said softly, “and I thank you from my heart.”

“And as to this present misfortune,” I continued, “you must not let it distress you too much.  Try to think of it as of a surgical operation, which is a dreadful thing in itself, but is accepted in lieu of something which is immeasurably more dreadful.”

“I will try to do as you tell me,” she answered meekly; “but it is so shocking to think of a cultivated gentleman like Reuben, herded with common thieves and murderers, and locked in a cage like some wild animal.  Think of the ignominy and degradation!”