Besides she remembered how even she herself had, at first, believed him guilty; and she felt it was not for her to cast stones at those who, on similar evidence, inclined to the same belief. None had given him much benefit of a doubt. None had faith in his innocence. None but his mother; and there the heart loved more than the head reasoned, and her yearning affection had never for an instant entertained the idea that her Jem was a murderer. But Mary disliked the whole conversation; the subject, the manner in which it was treated, were all painful, and she had a repugnance to the person with whom she spoke. She was thankful, therefore, when Job Legh's voice was heard at the door, as he stood with the latch in his hand, talking to a neighbour, and when Sally jumped up in vexation and said, "There's that old fogey coming in here, as I'm alive! Did your father set him to look after you while he was away? or what brings the old chap here? However, I'm off; I never could abide either him or his prim grand-daughter. Good-bye, Mary." So far in a whisper, then louder, "If you think better of my offer about the scarf, Mary, just step in to-morrow before nine, and you're quite welcome to it." She and Job passed each other at the door, with mutual looks of dislike, which neither took any pains to conceal. "Yon's a bold, bad girl," said Job to Mary "She's very good-natured," replied Mary, too honourable to abuse a visitor who had only that instant crossed her threshold, and gladly dwelling on the good quality most apparent in Sally's character. "Aye, aye! good-natured, generous, jolly, full of fun; there are a number of other names for the good qualities the devil leaves his children, as baits to catch gudgeons with. D'ye think folk could be led astray by one who was every way bad? Howe'er, that's not what I came to talk about. I've seen Mr Bridgenorth, and he is in a manner of the same mind as we; he thinks it would have an awkward look, and might tell against the poor lad on his trial; still if she's ill she's ill, and it can't be helped." "I don't know if she's so bad as all that," said Mary, who began to dread her part in doing anything which might tell against her poor lover. "Will you come and see her, Job? The doctor seemed to say as I liked, not as he thought." "That's because he had no great thought on the subject, either one way or t'other," replied Job, whose contempt for medical men pretty nearly equalled his respect for lawyers. But I'll go and welcome. I han not seen th' oud ladies since their sorrows, and it's but manners to go and ax after them. Come along." The room at Mrs Wilson's had that still, changeless look you must have often observed in the house of sickness and mourning. No particular employment going on; people watching and waiting rather than acting, unless in the more sudden and violent attacks what little movement is going on, so noiseless and hushed; the furniture all arranged and stationary, with a view to the comfort of the afflicted; the window-blinds drawn down, to keep out the disturbing variety of a sunbeam; the same saddened serious look on the faces of the in-dwellers; you fall back into the same train of thought with all these associations, and forget the street, the outer world, in the contemplation of the one stationary, absorbing interest within. Mrs Wilson sat quietly in her chair, with just tile same look Mary had left on her face; Mrs Davenport went about with creaking shoes which made all the more noise from her careful and lengthened tread annoying the ears of those who were well, in this instance, far more than the dull senses of the sick and the sorrowful. Alice's voice still was going on cheerfully in the upper room with incessant talking and little laughs to herself, or perhaps in sympathy with her unseen companions; "unseen," I say, in preference to "fancied," for who knows whether God does not permit the forms of those who were dearest when living, to hover round the bed of the dying? Job spoke, and Mrs Wilson answered. So quietly that it was unnatural under the circumstances. It made a deeper impression on the old man than any token of mere bodily illness could have done. If she had raved in delirium, or moaned in fever, he could have spoken after his wont, and given his opinion, his advice, and his consolation now he was awed into silence. At length he pulled Mary aside into a corner of the house-place, where Mrs Wilson was sitting; and began to talk to her. "Yo're right, Mary! She's no ways fit to go to Liverpool, poor soul. Now I've seen her I only wonder the doctor could ha' been unsettled in his mind at th' first. Choose how it goes wi' poor Jem, she cannot go. One way or another it will soon be over, the best to leave her in the state she is till then." "I was sure you would think so," said Mary. But they were reckoning without their host. They esteemed her senses gone, while, in fact, they were only inert, and could not convey impressions rapidly to the over-burdened, troubled brain. They had not noticed that her eyes had followed them (mechanically it seemed at first) as they had moved away to the corner of the room; that her face, hitherto so changeless, had begun to work with one or two of the old symptoms of impatience. But when they were silent she stood up, and startled them almost as if a dead person had spoken, by saying clearly and decidedly--" I go to Liverpool.
