Possibly this indifference of mine might have piqued him, for he tried to stimulate me to some show of interest, or even of curiosity about my own case, by dropping hints of the points of law on which the appeal was grounded, and the ingenuity by which counsel endeavored to rescue me. But all his efforts failed; I was dead to the past, and careless for the future.
“Here's another order come about you,” said he to me about a week after this; “you are not to be shipped off next time. They 've found something else in your case now, which, they say, will puzzle the twelve judges. Mayhap you 'd like to read it, if I could get you the newspaper?”
“It were kinder to leave me as I am,” replied I. “He who can only awake to sorrow had better be let sleep on.”
“Just as you please, my man,” rejoined he, gruffly; “though, if I were you, I 'd like to know that my case was not hopeless.”
“You fancy that it matters to me whether my sentence be seven years or seventy; whether I be condemned to chains here, or hard labor there, or mere imprisonment without either; but I tell you that for the terms of the penalty I care almost nothing. The degradation of the felon absorbs all the rest. When the law has once separated from all save the guilty, it has done its worst.”
This was the second attempt he made to stimulate my curiosity. His third venture was more successful.
“So, Gervois,” said he, seating himself opposite me, “they 're on the right scent at last in your business; they're likely to discover the real heir to that property you tried for.”
“What do you mean?” asked I.
“Why, it seems somehow there is, or there ought to be somewhere, a young fellow, a son to this same Carew; and if what the newspapers here say be true, his right to the estate can be soon established.”
I stared at him with amazement, and he went on.