Never doubt that she can and will do it better than you think. She is
all gold."

This, of course, silenced me, as I did not know what new danger I
might create, nor how I might mar the matter I so much wished to mend.
I did not tell Brandon that the girls had left Greenwich, nor of my
undefined, and, perhaps, unfounded fear that Mary might not act as he
thought she would in a great emergency, but silently helped him to
dress and went to London along with him and the sheriff's sergeant.

Brandon was taken to Newgate, the most loathsome prison in London at
that time, it being used for felons, while Ludgate was for debtors.
Here he was thrown into an underground dungeon foul with water that
seeped through the old masonry from the moat, and alive with every
noisome thing that creeps. There was no bed, no stool, no floor, not
even a wisp of a straw; simply the reeking stone walls, covered with
fungus, and the windowless arch overhead. One could hardly conceive a
more horrible place in which to spend even a moment. I had a glimpse
of it by the light of the keeper's lantern as they put him in, and it
seemed to me a single night in that awful place would have killed me
or driven me mad. I protested and begged and tried to bribe, but it
was all of no avail; the keeper had been bribed before I arrived.
Although it could do no possible good, I was glad to stand outside the
prison walls in the drenching rain, all the rest of that wretched
night, that I might be as near as possible to my friend and suffer a
little with him.

Was not I, too, greatly indebted to him? Had he not imperiled his life
and given his blood to save the honor of Jane as well as of
Mary--Jane, dearer to me a thousand-fold than the breath of my