wed
the most painful experience of all his life, one of which the very
thought would ever afterwards move him most profoundly. Two strong
men, utterly heedless of his yells and lamentations, took him by the
heels, and two yet stronger than they caught him by his plump and
tender wrists, and then, under the directions of the woman with the
squint, they began to swing him from side to side. As soon as the lady
directress considered that the impetus was sufficient, she said,
"Now!" and away he went like a swallow, only to land, when his flying
powers were exhausted, plump in the middle of the duck-pond.

Some ten seconds afterwards, a pillar of slimy mud arose and staggered
towards the bank, where a crowd of little boys, each holding something
offensive in his right hand, were eagerly awaiting its arrival. The
squint-eyed woman contemplated the figure with the most intense
satisfaction.

"He sold me up once," she murmured; "but we're quits now. That's it,
lads, let him have it."

But we will drop a veil over this too painful scene. Sir John Bellamy
was unwell for some days afterwards; when he recovered he shook the
dust of Roxham off his shoes for ever.

CHAPTER LXVIII

A fortnight or so afterwards, when the public excitement occasioned by
the Caresfoot tragedy had been partially eclipsed by a particularly
thrilling child-murder and suicide, a change for the better took place
in Angela's condition. One night, after an unusually violent fit of
raving, she suddenly went to sleep about twelve o'clock, and slept all
that night and all the next day. About half-past nine on the following
evening, the watchers in her room--namely, Pigott, Mr. Fraser, and Dr.
Williamson, who was trying to make out what this deep sleep meant--
were suddenly astonished at seeing her sit up in her bed in a
listening attitude, as though she could hear something that interested
her intensely, for the webbing that tied her down had been temporarily
removed, and then cry, in a tone of the most living anguish, and yet
with a world of passionate remonstrance in her voice,

"_Arthur, Arthur!_"

Then she sank down again for a few minutes. It was the same night that
Mildred and Arthur sat together on the deck of the _Evening Star_.
Presently she opened her eyes, and the doctor saw that there was no
longer any madness in them, only great trouble. Her glance first fell
upon Pigott.

"Run," she said, "run and stop him;