The prisoner seemed almost convulsed with rage, though of a sort which one of the officers whispered to the other, he did not exactly understand.

Guzzy eyed him resentfully, and glared at the officers with considerable disfavor.

Guzzy was a law-abiding man, but to have an expected triumph belittled and postponed because of foreign interference was enough to blind almost any man’s judicial eyesight.

“Well,” said one of the officers, “put him in the lock-up’ and investigate in the morning; we won’t want to start until then, after the tramp he’s given us.  Oh, Bay Billy, you’re a smart one—­no mistake about that.  Why in thunder don’t you use your smartness in the right way?—­there’s more money in business than in cracking cribs.”

“Besides the moral advantage,” added the squire, who was deacon as well, and who, now that he had concluded his official duties, was not adverse to laying down the higher law.

“Just so,” exclaimed the officer; “and for his family’s sake, too.  Why, would you believe it, judge?  They say Billy has one of the finest wives in the commonwealth—­handsome, well-educated, religious, rich, and of good family.  Of course she didn’t know what his profession was when she married him.”

Again the prisoner seemed convulsed with that strange rage which the officer did not understand.  But the officers were tired, and they were too familiar with the disapprobation of prisoners to be seriously affected by it; so, after an appointment by the squire, and a final glare of indignation from little Guzzy, they started, under the constable’s guidance, to the lock-up.

Suddenly the door was thrown open, and there appeared, with uncovered head, streaming hair, weeping yet eager eyes, and mud-splashed garments, Helen Wyett.

[Illustration:  “WE MAY AS WELL FINISH THIS CASE TO-NIGHT, IF MISS WYETT IS PREPARED TO TESTIFY,” SAID THE JUDGE.]

Every one started, the officers stared, the squire looked a degree or two less stupid, and hastened to button his dressing-gown; the restless eyes of the convict fell on Helen’s beautiful face, and were restless no longer; while little Guzzy assumed a dignified pose, which did not seem at all consistent with his confused and shamefaced countenance.

“We may as well finish this case to-night, if Miss Wyett is prepared to testify,” said the squire, at length.  “Have you lost anything, Miss Wyett?”

“No,” said Helen; “but I have found my dearest treasure—­my own husband!”

And putting her arms around the convict’s neck, she kissed him, and then, dropping her head upon his shoulder, she sobbed violently.

The squire was startled into complete wakefulness, and as the moral aspect of the scene presented itself to him, he groaned: 

“Onequally yoked with an onbeliever.”

The officers looked as if they were depraved yet remorseful convicts themselves, while little Guzzy’s diminutive dimensions seemed to contract perceptibly.