“Still yo’ must be careful. Who’s your doctor?”
“Dr. Dean.”
“What, my good friend Dean? The sly dog! Still a patient’s a patient”—this rather to himself than to me. “And has Dr. Dean said nothing to you about avoiding the night air for a time?”
“I don’t know that he has, your worship.”
“Well tell him you’ve seen me, and that my advice is that yo’ keep in doors these spring nights, fine or dark, and ask him if he doesn’t agree with me.”
“It is unnecessary, sir, I am entirely of that opinion myself.”
“Come that’s good hearing. Mind you stick to it. And, hark ye, thank God as long as you live that you’d a good father before yo’ and that Justice Radcliffe doesn’t give heed to every idle tale that’s brought to him.”
And he touched his hat as I uncovered and bent my head to him, for I knew all our precautions had been in vain, and that Justice Radcliffe had in his keeping a secret that could send me to the gallows.
But who had betrayed me?
