rsonal feeling excited as against the Recorder of Bristol.

The assizes would soon open, and vengeance was vowed against him, if he
attempted to enter the city to perform his duties as a judge.

Both parties vied with each other in exciting bitterness and ill
feeling; and all good, moderate men felt, in their own minds, that a
crisis was at hand, and that, unless some wise and able pilot could be
found to guide the helm, a most disastrous shipwreck must follow.

Gilbert Arundel had, with some other gentlemen, done what they could to
cast oil on the troubled waters. Gilbert had spoken several times at
some of the smaller meetings, and had advised temperance and patience.

He was one of the very few, in those days, who appealed to the working
men to help to maintain order among themselves; who showed the ruin and
distress the rioters had brought upon their families in other places,
and who spoke to them as having common cause with himself to do all they
could to protect their wives and children. Gilbert was, in his heart,
what was called a whig, but he was far, indeed, from being a hot-headed
radical.

That he was known to be the grandson of a peer, and that his mother had
a title, did not win him favour with the extreme section of his own
party, while the others, perhaps, were a little triumphant that the son
of a noble house might yet question the wisdom of the Lords in rejecting
a Bill which was so dear to the heart of the people.

Joyce gently closed the shutters and returned to her place by the fire.
Then she went out into the hall, where an oil lamp was dimly burning,
and looked out from a small window by the side of the door.

A sense of fear began to creep over her, not for herself, but for
Gilbert. She listened for his step with that nervous tension which is so
painful, and of which we all know something.

Presently the door of the cellar, which opened into the hall, creaked;
Joyce watched it breathlessly; it opened wider and wider, and a man's
head appeared. In the dim light she could scarcely discern the features,
but something in that face was surely familiar.

She was not left long in doubt; once more Bob Friday stood before her.

At first Joyce was literally paralysed with terror, and she could
neither speak, nor call for help.

She made a movement towards the door, but the man raised a hand to
prevent her.

"Don't you scream or move. I want to speak to you."

"How can you--how dare you, come h