“I send this letter to meet you on your arrival, Arthur, because I may then be at Stoniton, whither I am called by the most painful duty it has ever been given me to perform, and it is right that you should know what I have to tell you without delay.

“I will not attempt to add by one word of reproach to the retribution that is now falling on you:  any other words that I could write at this moment must be weak and unmeaning by the side of those in which I must tell you the simple fact.

“Hetty Sorrel is in prison, and will be tried on Friday for the crime of child-murder."...

Arthur read no more.  He started up from his chair and stood for a single minute with a sense of violent convulsion in his whole frame, as if the life were going out of him with horrible throbs; but the next minute he had rushed out of the room, still clutching the letter—­he was hurrying along the corridor, and down the stairs into the hall.  Mills was still there, but Arthur did not see him, as he passed like a hunted man across the hall and out along the gravel.  The butler hurried out after him as fast as his elderly limbs could run:  he guessed, he knew, where the young squire was going.

When Mills got to the stables, a horse was being saddled, and Arthur was forcing himself to read the remaining words of the letter.  He thrust it into his pocket as the horse was led up to him, and at that moment caught sight of Mills’ anxious face in front of him.

“Tell them I’m gone—­gone to Stoniton,” he said in a muffled tone of agitation—­sprang into the saddle, and set off at a gallop.

Chapter XLV

In the Prison

Near sunset that evening an elderly gentleman was standing with his back against the smaller entrance-door of Stoniton jail, saying a few last words to the departing chaplain.  The chaplain walked away, but the elderly gentleman stood still, looking down on the pavement and stroking his chin with a ruminating air, when he was roused by a sweet clear woman’s voice, saying, “Can I get into the prison, if you please?”

He turned his head and looked fixedly at the speaker for a few moments without answering.

“I have seen you before,” he said at last.  “Do you remember preaching on the village green at Hayslope in Loamshire?”

“Yes, sir, surely.  Are you the gentleman that stayed to listen on horseback?”

“Yes.  Why do you want to go into the prison?”

“I want to go to Hetty Sorrel, the young woman who has been condemned to death—­and to stay with her, if I may be permitted.  Have you power in the prison, sir?”

“Yes; I am a magistrate, and can get admittance for you.  But did you know this criminal, Hetty Sorrel?”

“Yes, we are kin.  My own aunt married her uncle, Martin Poyser.  But I was away at Leeds, and didn’t know of this great trouble in time to get here before to-day.  I entreat you, sir, for the love of our heavenly Father, to let me go to her and stay with her.”