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spurious appearance of old English jollity. A knot of men
round the door melted into air as Captain Frere approached,
for it was now past eleven o’clock, and all persons found in
the streets after eight could be compelled to ‘show their pass’
or explain their business. The convict constables were not
scrupulous in the exercise of their duty, and the bluff figure
of Frere, clad in the blue serge which he affected as a sum-
mer costume, looked not unlike that of a convict constable.
Pushing open the side door with the confident manner
of one well acquainted with the house, Frere entered, and
made his way along a narrow passage to a glass door at the
further end. A tap upon this door brought a white-faced,
pock-pitted Irish girl, who curtsied with servile recogni-
tion of the visitor, and ushered him upstairs. The room into
which he was shown was a large one. It had three windows
looking into the street, and was handsomely furnished. The
carpet was soft, the candles were bright, and the supper tray
gleamed invitingly from a table between the windows. As
Frere entered, a little terrier ran barking to his feet. It was
evident that he was not a constant visitor. The rustle of a silk
dress behind the terrier betrayed the presence of a woman;
and Frere, rounding the promontory of an ottoman, found
himself face to face with Sarah Purfoy.
‘Thank you for coming,’ she said. ‘Pray, sit down.’
This was the only greeting that passed between them,
and Frere sat down, in obedience to a motion of a plump
hand that twinkled with rings.
The eleven years that had passed since we last saw this
woman had dealt gently with her. Her foot was as small and

0 For the Term of His Natural Life