other and the babies, and
Charlotte Benson had better go home. There is a house at Abbots Leigh,
Benson, my partner, will let me have, and you would be out of harm's way
there."

"Oh! Gilbert, surely you do not mean that I am to leave you? I could
not--I will not leave you!"

"You will do what I think is best and right, like a brave, good wife.
You would not add to my anxiety, I am sure. I have seen enough in
Bristol to-day to feel certain there will be a desperate struggle before
the city quiets down. Only imagine that man, Captain Claxton, being so
mad as to call a meeting of sailors on board the two ships now in the
harbour, the 'Charles' and the 'Earl of Liverpool,' under pretence of
voting a loyal address to the king, but really to get the sailors to
form a guard to protect Wetherall when he enters Bristol. Could anything
be more likely to enrage the other party? The meeting was broken up and
adjourned to the quay, where the anti-reformers passed the resolution in
a great uproar, protesting loyalty to the king, but declaring they will
not be made a cat's paw of by the corporation and paid agents. The
notion of protesting this publicly in the face of all the orders of the
mayor! They are going to send a deputation to Wetherall to beg him not
to persist in coming in next Saturday; but I am afraid it will be
useless. If anything could have added to my own share in the troubles of
the city, it is that Maythorne has chosen this time to come to the hotel
in Clifton. He is a mere wreck, and so broken down that he looks like an
old man instead of in his prime, but he is as bumptious as ever."

Joyce had roused herself now. The idea of Gilbert's danger was enough to
drive away every other anxiety.

She made him take the refreshment which he so greatly needed, and,
though pale and exhausted, she felt it almost a relief to busy herself
in any way which diverted her mind from the terrible half-hour she had
gone through in the hall face to face with Bob Priday.

"Why is Maythorne's coming so vexatious to you?" she asked; "I mean,
more vexatious than usual."

"My dear child," Gilbert said, "the very fact of his title, and my
connection with it, would be enough to ensure brickbats and stones to
be hurled at my head if he is seen with me. Let us hope he will keep to
the more aristocratic quarters of Clifton, and not come near us."

"I think," Joyce said, when at last they prepared to go upstairs to bed;
"I think I should l