“It’s far enough off by this time, sir,” said a voice beside, him, “and if you ain’t hurt, I am. Never went in training for a hacrobat. Here, Bobby, help us up with the fiery untamed steed. That’s the second time he’s chucked me over the roof. Wait a moment, sir, and I’ll drive you on; we may ketch ’em yet. Don’t do a man out of his fare.”
“Too late,” was all Stratton could think of then. “I could not overtake it now.”
And in a dim, misty way he seemed to be watching Brettison hurrying away with that heavy, awkward case which contained—
“Yes,” he muttered with a shudder, “it must be that.”
Chapter Forty Two.
By a Ruse.
Such a chance did not come in Stratton’s way again. “If I had drunk that when Guest came and interrupted me—when was it? Two years and more ago,” sighed Stratton one night, “what an infinity of suffering I should have been spared. All the hopes and disappointments of that weary time, all the madness and despair of the morning when that wretched convict came, all my remorse, my battles with self, the struggles to conceal my crime—all—all spared to me; for I should have been asleep.”
A curious doubting smile crossed his face slowly at these thoughts; and, resting his cheek upon his hand, with the light full upon his face, he gazed straight before him into vacancy.