such—­the truest and most unselfish friend he had—­as the person best qualified to win Harry over to speak those words.  He was no longer ashamed to see her; his heart was so full of anxious fear that there was no room for shame; but he was glad that the lawyer had recommended her to visit Gethin before coming to Cross Key.  What he thirsted for was hope, a gleam of sunshine, a whisper of good news.  If his mother had not that to give him, let her stay away.  He did not wish his heart to be melted within him by regrets and tears; if there was no hope, let it harden on, till it was as hard as adamant, for the hour, that, however long delayed, must come at last—­of vengeance!  He thought of Solomon Coe as one of a dominant race thinks of the slave who has become his master, and was his murderer in his heart ten times a day.  He thought of him as the man who would marry Trevethick’s daughter, his own Harry, while he (Richard) rotted in jail.

Such were the bitter reflections, creeping fears, and meagre hopes which consumed him when he was alone, that is to say, for five-sixths of the day and all the weary night.  In the society of Balfour he found, if not solace, at least some respite from his gnawing cares.  The importance which this man had attached to the recovery of stolen goods as mitigating the punishment of crime, and to good looks in the case of a female witness or prisoner, corroborated as it had been by the judicial experience of Mr. Weasel, gave him confidence in the convict’s intelligence; or, at least, in his judgment with respect to the matter on which Richard’s thoughts were solely concentrated.  He was never weary of asking this man’s opinion on this point and on that of his own case, the details of which he fully confided to him.  Balfour, on his part, gave him his best advice, and whatever comfort he could.  He did not resent, nor even seem to be aware of the fact, that the position in which he stood himself awoke no corresponding sympathy in Richard.  He had taken a fancy to this young fellow, so different from any companion that he had ever known; was flattered by his confidence; and felt that enthusiasm toward him which friendship, when it exists between two persons of widely different grades, sometimes begets in the inferior.

A week passed on, and then, at the same time and place as before, Richard was summoned from his fellow-prisoners.  He turned pale in spite of himself, as he rose from the table to meet for the first time, since disgrace had overwhelmed him, his mother’s face.

“Don’t give way, my young master,” whispered Balfour, good-naturedly, “for that will only make the old woman fret.”