had to sit down and recover strength.  Her head drooped forwards—­her hands meekly laid one upon the other—­she tried to recall the force of her temptation, by endeavouring to remember the details which had thrown her into such deadly fright; but she could not.  She only understood two facts—­that Frederick had been in danger of being pursued and detected in London, as not only guilty of manslaughter, but as the more unpardonable leader of the mutiny, and that she had lied to save him.  There was one comfort; her lie had saved him, if only by gaining some additional time.  If the inspector came again to-morrow, after she had received the letter she longed for to assure her of her brother’s safety, she would brave shame, and stand in her bitter penance—­she, the lofty Margaret—­acknowledging before a crowded justice-room, if need were, that she had been as ‘a dog, and done this thing.’  But if he came before she heard from Frederick; if he returned, as he had half threatened, in a few hours, why! she would tell that lie again; though how the words would come out, after all this terrible pause for reflection and self-reproach, without betraying her falsehood, she did not know, she could not tell.  But her repetition of it would gain time—­time for Frederick.

She was roused by Dixon’s entrance into the room; she had just been letting out Mr. Thornton.

He had hardly gone ten steps in the street, before a passing omnibus stopped close by him, and a man got down, and came up to him, touching his hat as he did so.  It was the police-inspector.

Mr. Thornton had obtained for him his first situation in the police, and had heard from time to time of the progress of his protege, but they had not often met, and at first Mr. Thornton did not remember him.

‘My name is Watson—­George Watson, sir, that you got——­’

‘Ah, yes!  I recollect.  Why you are getting on famously, I hear.’

’Yes, sir.  I ought to thank you, sir.  But it is on a little matter of business I made so bold as to speak to you now.  I believe you were the magistrate who attended to take down the deposition of a poor man who died in the Infirmary last night.’

‘Yes,’ replied Mr. Thornton.  ’I went and heard some kind of a rambling statement, which the clerk said was of no great use.  I’m afraid he was but a drunken fellow, though there is no doubt he came to his death by violence at last.  One of my mother’s servants was engaged to him, I believe, and she is in great distress to-day.  What about him?’

’Why, sir, his death is oddly mixed up with somebody in the house I saw you coming out of just now; it was a Mr. Hale’s, I believe.’

‘Yes!’ said Mr. Thornton, turning sharp round and looking into the inspector’s face with sudden interest.  ‘What about it?’

’Why, sir, it seems to me that I have got a pretty distinct chain of evidence, inculpating a gentleman who was walking with Miss Hale that night at the Outwood station, as the man who struck or pushed Leonards off the platform and so caused his death.  But the young lady denies that she was there at the time.’