"Where are we? I remember walking, wading, it seemed to me, neck deep through a crowd, trying to keep up with you. Some one said they were taking us to prison; that I had done nothing, and they would not keep me. That you and Julia would stay, but I must go into the street, because a wife could not bear witness against her husband, but a grandchild could. Have I been crazy, or walking in my sleep, Wilcox?"
"No, wife, you are worn out—frightened; drink some more of the coffee, by and bye all will be clear to you."
The old woman obeyed him, and drank eagerly from the cup in her hand. Then she looked on her husband, on Julia, and the officer, as if striving to make out why they were all together in that strange place. All at once she set down the cup and drew a heavy breath.
"I remember," she said, mournfully—"I remember now that dead man, with his open eyes and white clenched teeth; I know who he was—I knew it at first."
The officer drew a step nearer and listened, the spirit of his vocation was strong within him. There might be important evidence in her words, and for a moment the humane man was lost in the acute officer. The prisoner remarked this movement, and looked on the man with an expression of mild rebuke.
"Would you take advantage of her unsettled state, or of the words it might wring from me?" he said.
"No," answered the officer, stepping back, abashed. "No, I would not do anything of the kind, at least deliberately."
But this remonstrance had aroused distrust in the old woman, she drew close to her husband, and whispered to him—
"I cannot quite make it out, Wilcox. The people—the crowd said over and over again that they were taking us to prison. This is no prison! carpets on the floor, chairs, window blinds, all so pretty and snug, with us eating and drinking together. This is no prison, Wilcox, we have not had so nice a home these ten years."
"This is only a room in the prison, not the one they will give me by and bye!" answered the old man with a faint smile, "that will be smaller yet."