Mr. Seccombe looked at him for a moment inquiringly. He thought he knew, by sight, nearly everybody in the parish, but he was not sure that he had seen this young man before.
"Will you take a seat?" he said, anxious to put the young man at his ease; for he was still convinced that this was a timid bachelor, who wanted to make arrangements for getting married.
"I would prefer to stand, if you don't mind," he answered, toying nervously with his cap.
"As you will," the vicar said, with a smile. "I presume you are about to take to yourself a wife?"
"Me? Oh dear, no. I've something else to think of."
"I beg your pardon," the vicar said, feeling a little confused. "I thought, perhaps----"
"Nothing so pleasant," was the hurried answer. "The fact is, I've come upon a job that--well, I hardly know if I can tell it, now I've come."
"You had better take a seat," he said. "You will feel more comfortable."
The young man dropped into an easy-chair and stared at the fire. He was not a bad-looking young fellow. His face was pale, as though he worked underground, and his cheeks were thin enough to suggest too little nourishing food.
"The truth is, I only made up my mind an hour ago," he said abruptly.
"You have heard of that poor woman being carried off to the workhouse, I expect."
"Ay! Well, that floored me. I felt that I could hold out no longer. I meant to have waited to see which way the trial went----"
"Yes?" the vicar said again, seeing he hesitated.
"I've always believed that no jury that wasn't prejudiced would convict him on the evidence."
"You refer to Ralph Penlogan, of course?"
"The young man who's in prison on the charge of shooting Squire Hamblyn. Do you think he's anything like me?"
"You certainly are not unlike him in the general outline of your face. But, of course, anyone who knows young Penlogan----"
"Would never mistake him for me," the other interrupted.
"And yet bigger mistakes have been made. But I'd better tell you the whole story. I don't know what'll become of mother and the young ones, but I can't bear it any longer, and that's a fact. When I heard that that poor woman had been took off to the workhouse, I said to myself, 'Jim Brewer, you're a coward.' And that's the reason I'm here----"