“And your companions, who were they?” asked Darcy, eagerly.
“You shall hear.”
“I guess one of them already,” interposed the Knight “The trusty Sandy. Is it not so?”
“The other you will never hit upon,” said Daly, nodding an assent.
“I 'm thinking over all our friends, and yet none seem likely.”
“Come, Maurice, prepare yourself for surprise. What think you, if he to whose fate I had linked myself, resolving that, live or die, we should not separate,—if this man was—Gleeson—honest Tom Gleeson?”
The words seemed stunning in their effect; for Darey leaned back, and passing his hands over his closed lids, murmured, “I hope my poor faculties are not wandering,—I trust this may be no delusion.”
“He is yonder,” said Daly, taking the Knight's hand in his strong grasp; “Sandy mounts guard over him. Not that the poor devil thinks of or desires escape; he was too weary of a life of deception and sin when we caught him, to wish to prolong it. Now rouse yourself, and listen to me.”
It would doubtless be a heavy tax on our kind reader's patience were we to relate, circumstantially, the conversation, that, now commencing, lasted during the entire night and till late in the following morning. Enough if we say that Daly, having, through Freney's instrumentality, discovered that Gleeson had not committed suicide, but only spread this rumor for concealment's sake, resolved to pursue him to America. Fearing that any suspicion of his object might escape, he did not even trust Bicknell with the secret; but by suffering him to continue law proceedings as before, totally blinded the Hickmans as to the possibility of the event.
It would in itself be a tale of marvel to recount the strange adventures which Daly encountered in his search and pursuit of Gleeson, who had originally taken up his residence in the States, was recognized there, and fled into Canada, where he wandered about from place to place, conscience-stricken and miserable. He was wretchedly poor, besides; for on the bills and securities he carried away, many being on eminent houses in America, payment was stopped, and being unable to risk proceedings, he was reduced to beggary.