Hastily she drew back. She heard feet on the gravel The men were returning, Mr. Obadliah Scantlebray and the smuggler, each laden with a small cask of spirits.
"Right you are," said the man, as he set his keg down in the passage, "that's yours, and I could drink your health, sir."
"You wouldn't—prefer?—" Mr. Scantlebray made contortions with his hands between the candle and the wall, and threw a shadow on the surface of plaster.
"No, thanks sir, I'd prefer a shilling."
Mr. Scantlebray fumbled in his pockets, grunted "Humph! purse up-stairs." Felt again, "No," groped inside the breast of his waistcoat, "another time—not forget."
The man muttered something not complimentary, and turned to go through the yard.
"Must lock door," said Mr. Obadiah, and went after him. Now was Judith's last chance. She took it at once; the moment the backs of the two men were turned she darted into the passage and stood back against the door out of the flare of the candle.
The passage was a sort of hall with slated floor, the walls plastered and whitewashed at one time, but the wash and plaster had been picked off to about five feet from the floor wherever not strongly adhesive, giving a diseased and sore look to the wall. The slates of the floor were dirty and broken.
Judith looked along the hall for a place to which she could retreat on the return of the proprietor of the establishment. She had entered that portion of the building tenanted by the unhappy patients. The meanness of the passage, the picked walls, the situation on one side of the comfortable residence showed her this. A door there was on the right, ajar, that led into the private dwelling-house, but into that Judith did not care to enter. One further down on the left probably gave access to some apartment devoted to the "pupils," as Mrs. Scantlebray called the patients.
There was, however, another door that was open, and from it descended a flight of brick steps to what Judith conjectured to be the cellars. At the bottom a second candle, in a tin candlestick, was guttering and flickering in the draught that blew in at the yard door, and descended to this underground story. It was obvious to
