Allan nodded. He would have known the Ghost anywhere.
“It doesn’t matter now,” continued the man. “I’m done for. But you’ll keep quiet, won’t you?”
Allan nodded again.
“It wouldn’t do you any good to give me away now. I’m sorry I did what I did to you.”
Allan tried to say that he bore him no grudge at all.
“I was desperate. You understood that? And I did get away, got away and made another start. But they were after me, and I finally went where I thought they might let me alone.”
The man’s whisper grew very difficult to hear.
“I took care of myself for a little while. Yes, I was straight. And then one day, just as the war came, I found that they had traced me. By good luck I got a chance to enlist. That was how I dodged them again.” A pitiful smile came over the man’s face. “And now I’m going to escape them for good and all. No, no!” the man burst out as one of the men who had been carrying the stretcher placed his hand on Allan’s shoulder. “Wait a moment!”
“You mustn’t talk,” said the man, firmly.
