like Dick Shand and Caldigate,—­as human beings who had, as it were, lost their souls before death, so that it was useless to think of them otherwise than as already damned.  That Caldigate should become a good, honest, loving husband, or Dick Shand a truth-speaking witness, was to her thinking much more improbable than that a camel should go through the eye of a needle.  She would press her lips together and grind her teeth and shake her head when any one about her spoke of a doubt.  The man was in prison, at any rate for two years,—­locked up safe for so much time, as it might be a wild beast which with infinite trouble had been caged.  And now they were talking of undoing the bars and allowing the monster to gorge himself again with his prey!

‘If the Queen were told the truth she would never do it,’ she said to her amazed husband.  ’The Queen is a mother and a woman who kneels in prayer before her Maker.  Something should be done, so that the truth may be made known to her.’

To illuminate all the darkness which was betrayed by this appeal to him was altogether beyond Mr. Bolton’s power.  He appreciated the depth of the darkness.  He knew, for instance, that the Queen herself would in such a matter act so simply in accordance with the advice of some one else, that the pardon, if given, would not in the least depend on her Majesty’s sentiments.  To call it the Queen’s pardon was a simple figure of speech.  This was manifest to him, and he was driven to endeavour to make it manifest to her.  She spoke of a petition to be sent direct to the Queen, and insinuated that Robert Bolton, if he were anything like a real brother, would force himself into her Majesty’s presence.  ’It isn’t the Queen,’ said her husband.

’It is the Queen.  Mercy is the prerogative of the Crown.  Even I know as much as that.  And she is to be made to believe that this is mercy!’

‘Her Majesty does what her Ministers tell her.’

’But she wouldn’t if she was told the truth.  I do not for a moment believe that she would allow such a man as that to be let loose about the world like a roaring lion if she knew all that you and I know.  Mercy indeed!’

‘It won’t be meant for mercy, my dear.’

’What then?  Do you not know that the man has another wife alive,—­a wife much more suited to him than our poor darling?  Nobody would hear my voice while there was yet time.  And so my child, my only one, was taken away from me by her own father and her own brothers, and no one now will exert himself to bring her back to her home!’ The poor old man had had but little comfort in his home since his daughter’s marriage, and was now more miserable than ever.