They sat side by side in silence, having nothing to say, the one to the other. The shadows that were slowly stretching themselves across the broad walk on the Park side of the Avenue shivered as the spring breeze played with the tender foliage of the trees that spread their ample branches almost over the wall. The languid scent of blossoming bushes was borne fitfully beyond the border of the Park. To the eyes of the younger of the two men in the hansom the quivering play of light and shade brought no pleasure; and he had no delight in the fragrance of the springtime—although in former years he had been wont to thrill with unspoken joy at the promise of summer.
The elder of the two took no thought of such things; it was as though he had no time to waste. Of course, he was aware that winter followed the fall, and that summer had come in its turn; but this was all in the day’s work. He had the reputation of being a good man in his business; and although the spring had brought no smile to his firm lips, he was satisfied with his success in the latest task intrusted to him. He had in his pocket a folded paper, signed by the Governor of a State in the Mississippi Valley, and sealed with the seal of that commonwealth; and in the little bag on his knees he carried a pair of handcuffs.
As the hansom approached the Plaza at the entrance to the Park, the gray-eyed Westerner caught sight of the thickening crowd, and of the apparent confusion in which men and women and children were mixed, bicycles and electric cabs, carriages and cross-town cars, all weltering together; and he wondered for a moment whether he had done wisely in allowing so much apparent freedom to his prisoner. He looked right and left swiftly, as though sizing up the chances of escape, and then he glanced down at the bag on his knees.
“You needn’t be afraid of my trying to run,” said the younger man. “What good would it do me? You’ve caught me once, and I don’t doubt you could do it again.”
“That’s so,” returned the other, with just a tinge of self-satisfaction in his chilly smile. “I shouldn’t wonder if I could.”
“Besides, I don’t want to get away now,” insisted the first speaker. “I’ve got to face the music sooner or later, and I don’t care how quick the brass band strikes up. I want to take my punishment and have it over. That’s what I want. I’m going to plead guilty and save the State the trouble of trying me, and the expense, too. That ought to count in cutting down the sentence, oughtn’t it? And then I shall study the rules of—of that place, and I mean to learn them by heart. There won’t be anybody there in a greater hurry to get out than I, and so I’m going to be a model of good conduct.”