'I'd rather be a street-sweeper!' bitterly began Leonard.—'Oh, Dr. May, do let me have that!' he cried, suddenly changing his tone, and holding out his hand, as he perceived in the Doctor's button-hole a dove-pink, presented at a cottage door by a grateful patient. For a space he was entirely occupied with gazing into its crimson depths, inhaling the fragrance, and caressingly spreading the cool damask petals against his hot cheeks and eyelids. 'It is so long since I saw anything but walls!' he said.
'Three weeks,' sadly replied the Doctor.
'There was a gleam of sunshine when I got out of the van yesterday. I never knew before what sunshine was. I hope it will be a sunny day when I go out for the last time!'
'My dear boy, I have good hopes of saving you. There's not a creature in Stoneborough, or round it, that is not going to petition for you—and at your age—'
Leonard shook his head in dejection. 'It has all gone against me,' he said. 'They all say there's no chance. The chaplain says it is of no use unsettling my mind.'
'The chaplain is an old—' began Dr. May, catching himself up only just in time, and asking, 'How do you get on with him!'
'I can hear him read,' said Leonard, with the look that had been thought sullen.
'But you cannot talk to him?'
'Not while he thinks me guilty.' Then, at a sound of warm sympathy from his friend, he added, 'I suppose it is his duty; but I wish he would keep away. I can't stand his aiming at making me confess, and I don't want to be disrespectful.'
'I see, I see. It cannot be otherwise. But how would it be if Wilmot came to you?'