At last the news did come--a long arrear all in a gush: a letter from a
female friend in Shrewsbury; a return of the sentences, sent up for the
Judge; and most important, because most easily got at, being told with
great aplomb and brevity, the long-deferred intelligence of the
Shrewsbury Assizes in the _Morning Advertiser_. Like an impatient reader
of a novel, who reads the last page first, she read with dizzy eyes the
list of the executions.

Two were respited, seven were hanged; and in that capital catalogue was
this line:

"Lewis Pyneweck--forgery."

She had to read it a half-a-dozen times over before she was sure she
understood it. Here was the paragraph:

_Sentence, Death--7._

Executed accordingly, on Friday the 13th instant, to wit:

Thomas Primer, _alias_ Duck--highway robbery. Flora Guy--stealing to
the value of 11s. 6d. Arthur Pounden--burglary. Matilda
Mummery--riot. Lewis Pyneweck--forgery, bill of exchange.

And when she reached this, she read it over and over, feeling very cold
and sick.

This buxom housekeeper was known in the house as Mrs. Carwell--Carwell
being her maiden name, which she had resumed.