While the Judge was speaking Pete did not move a muscle of his face, but looked at him just as usual, and when he had finished, said as quietly as usual,—
'I thank Your Honour.'
After that we were led away.
CHAPTER XI HOW I ESCAPED
I am not going to attempt to furnish you with a description of my sensations during the first fortnight of my imprisonment. It would be quite impossible to give you any adequate idea of them. I believe for the greater part of the time I was on the verge of madness, one moment buoyed up with hope that Pete, seeing his own inevitable doom approaching, would make confession of my innocence, and the next hurled down into the depths lest he should not do it at all, and so leave me, an innocent man, to suffer undeserved punishment for the remainder of my natural existence. The day of his execution was drawing closer, and with every moment my anxiety was growing more and more unbearable. As if to make it harder, by the rules of the prison I could not appeal to him in any way. Of Sheilah I dared not think at all, and by the same token I could only speculate what had happened to my father.
One morning, however, I was destined to be enlightened on two of these subjects. The Governor, going his rounds, stopped at my cell, and when I saw him I dropped the work upon which I had been engaged and stood at attention.
'Prisoner,' he said, 'you have this morning addressed a letter to me asking if the condemned man Dempster has made any confession of your innocence. In reply I have some news to give you which I fear will greatly distress you. Dempster died suddenly this morning of aneurism of the heart, leaving no confession of any kind.'
'Dead!' I cried, hardly able to believe my ears. 'And left no confession. Then I am ruined indeed! I shall have to spend my life in prison and I am an innocent man.'