第38段(1 / 3)

rder stepped up to

greet its driver, and then to open its doors. ''They will let the women off first,'' said

Miss Manning to me. ''Here they come, look.'' She moved forward, pulling her cloak

a little closer about her. I, however, hung back, to study the prisoners as they

emerged.

There were four of them—three girls, quite young, and one middle-aged woman

with a bruise upon her cheek. Each had her hands held fast and stiff before her in a

pair of handcuffs; each stumbled a little as she dropped from the van''s high back

step, then stood a second and gazed about her, blinking at the pale sky, and at

Millbank''s ghastly towers and yellow walls. Only the older woman seemed

unafraid—but she, it turned out, was used to the sight, for as the matrons stepped

up to chivvy the women into a ragged line and lead them off I saw Miss Ridley

narrow her eyes. ''You again, then, Williams,'' she said; and the woman''s bruised face

seemed to darken.

I walked at the rear of the little group, behind Miss Manning. The younger

women continued to look about them rather fearfully, and one leaned to murmur

something to her neighbour, and had to be scolded. Their uncertainty

reminded me of my own first visit to the gaol—less than a month ago, still; but

how familiar have I grown, since then, with the plain, monotonous routes, that once