’O yes, miss!  Now I understand.  I’ve had such people come in past years.  But it didn’t strike me that you looked of a sort to require blood-turning.  What’s the complaint?  The wrong kind for this, I’ll be bound.’

‘My arm.’  She reluctantly showed the withered skin.

‘Ah—­’tis all a-scram!’ said the hangman, examining it.

‘Yes,’ said she.

‘Well,’ he continued, with interest, ‘that is the class o’ subject, I’m bound to admit!  I like the look of the place; it is truly as suitable for the cure as any I ever saw.  ’Twas a knowing-man that sent ’ee, whoever he was.’

‘You can contrive for me all that’s necessary?’ she said breathlessly.

’You should really have gone to the governor of the jail, and your doctor with ’ee, and given your name and address—­that’s how it used to be done, if I recollect.  Still, perhaps, I can manage it for a trifling fee.’

’O, thank you!  I would rather do it this way, as I should like it kept private.’

‘Lover not to know, eh?’

‘No—­husband.’

‘Aha!  Very well.  I’ll get ee’ a touch of the corpse.’

‘Where is it now?’ she said, shuddering.

’It?—­he, you mean; he’s living yet.  Just inside that little small winder up there in the glum.’  He signified the jail on the cliff above.

She thought of her husband and her friends.  ‘Yes, of course,’ she said; ‘and how am I to proceed?’

He took her to the door.  ’Now, do you be waiting at the little wicket in the wall, that you’ll find up there in the lane, not later than one o’clock.  I will open it from the inside, as I shan’t come home to dinner till he’s cut down.  Good-night.  Be punctual; and if you don’t want anybody to know ’ee, wear a veil.  Ah—­once I had such a daughter as you!’

She went away, and climbed the path above, to assure herself that she would be able to find the wicket next day.  Its outline was soon visible to her—­a narrow opening in the outer wall of the prison precincts.  The steep was so great that, having reached the wicket, she stopped a moment to breathe; and, looking back upon the water-side cot, saw the hangman again ascending his outdoor staircase.  He entered the loft or chamber to which it led, and in a few minutes extinguished his light.

The town clock struck ten, and she returned to the White Hart as she had come.

CHAPTER IX—­A RENCOUNTER

It was one o’clock on Saturday.  Gertrude Lodge, having been admitted to the jail as above described, was sitting in a waiting-room within the second gate, which stood under a classic archway of ashlar, then comparatively modern, and bearing the inscription, ‘COVNTY jail:  1793.’  This had been the facade she saw from the heath the day before.  Near at hand was a passage to the roof on which the gallows stood.