id.

"It's not a bit like Sunday," Falcon exclaimed, "for the people are
beginning to shout again, and roar louder than ever down below."

Mrs. Arundel was sitting with Gilbert, who was drowsy and heavy, and
asked but few questions as to where Joyce had been.

"It was a great risk," Mrs. Arundel said; "and did it effect any good?"

"I think so," said Joyce, simply. "I took hope to the death-bed of a
poor man, the hope which was not denied to the thief on the cross; and I
took a daughter to bear witness to her father that love could triumph
even over the memory of wrong-doing like his."

Mrs. Arundel shook her head. "We must leave the result with God," she
said; "a God of love; but He will by no means spare the guilty. Where
are Piers and Susan?"

"They are gone back to Down Cottage. I got out of the coach at the turn
to Brandon Hill. The children looked so well and happy, and my mother
has made them so cosy and comfortable."

Then Joyce took up her post by her husband's bed. The doctor, who came
in later, said that he was to be kept very quiet and free from
excitement; and, he added, "I wish, indeed, he were further from the
town, for I greatly fear worse things are at hand."

The story of that fearful Sunday is too well known to need any minute
description here.

Hour by hour the tumult increased; forked flames shot up into the gray,
autumnal sky, as the governor's house at the gaol and the chapel were
set on fire by the rioters; and, as the benches in the interior of the
chapel had been rubbed with pitch, the whole was soon devoured. The
county prison followed, and, at half-past eight on Sunday evening, the
lurid glare in the heavens was awful to witness.

Poor little Falcon, clasped in his mother's arms as she sat in the
window-seat, hid his face in her breast and at last, worn out with
terror and excitement, fell asleep. Then she carried him to a room at
the back of the house, where Mrs. Arundel and the maids had taken
refuge, and returned to watch by Gilbert's side. In her secret heart she
was thankful that the "blow at a venture" had prevented her husband from
being in the seething crowd below. How terrible would have been her
watch had she known that he was there, in the very thick of the fray.

Gilbert lay very still, and often slept, though, in spite of the thick
curtains drawn round the large four-post bed, the red glare from without
was distinctly visible.

"Joyce," he said, when this glare had