“You need not,” replied Jack, in a tone of the deepest compunction.  “And, oh! forgive me, though I can never forgive myself, for the misery I have caused you.”

“Forgive you!” echoed his mother, with a look radiant with delight.  “I have nothing to forgive.  Ah!” she screamed, with a sudden change of manner; and pointing to the window, which Jack had left open, and at which a dark figure was standing, “there is Jonathan Wild!”

“Betrayed!” exclaimed Jack, glancing in the same direction.  “The door!—­the door!—­death!” he added, as he tried the handle, “it is locked—­and I am unarmed.  Madman that I am to be so!”

“Help!” shrieked Mrs. Sheppard.

“Be silent,” said Jonathan, striding deliberately into the room; “these cries will avail you nothing.  Whoever answers them must assist me to capture your son.  Be silent, I say, if you value his safety.”

Awed by Jonathan’s manner, Mrs. Sheppard repressed the scream that rose to her lips, and both mother and son gazed with apprehension at the heavy figure of the thief-taker, which, viewed in the twilight, seemed dilated to twice its natural size, and appeared almost to block up the window.  In addition to his customary arms, Jonathan carried a bludgeon with a large heavy knob, suspended from his wrist by a loop; a favourite weapon, which he always took with him on dangerous expeditions, and which, if any information had been requisite, would have told Sheppard that the present was one of them.

“Well, Jack,” he said, after a pause, “are you disposed to go back quietly with me?”

“You’ll ascertain that when you attempt to touch me,” rejoined Sheppard, resolutely.

“My janizaries are within call,” returned Wild.  “I’m armed; you are not.”

“It matters not.  You shall not take me alive.”

“Spare him! spare him!” cried Mrs. Sheppard, falling on her knees.

“Get up, mother,” cried Jack; “do not kneel to him.  I wouldn’t accept my life from him.  I’ve foiled him hitherto, and will foil him yet.  And, come what will, I’ll balk him of the satisfaction of hanging me.”

Jonathan raised his bludgeon, but controlled himself by a powerful effort.

“Fool!” he cried, “do you think I wouldn’t have secured you before this if I hadn’t some motive for my forbearance?”

“And that motive is fear,” replied Jack contemptuously.

“Fear!” echoed Wild, in a terrible tone,—­“fear!  Repeat that word again, and nothing shall save you.”

“Don’t anger him, my dear son,” implored the poor widow, with a look of anguish at Jack.  “Perhaps he means well.”

“Mad as you are, you’re the more sensible of the two, I must say,” rejoined Jonathan.

“Spare him!” cried Mrs, Sheppard, who fancied she had made some impression on the obdurate breast of the thief-taker,—­“spare him! and I will forgive you, will thank you, bless you.  Spare him! spare him!”