“Really, as far as danger is concerned, my prospects with Wiggins are far preferable to my prospects with you.”
“But you don't know him. He has done terrible things—deeds of horror.”
“And you—what have you done? But perhaps I have mistaken you. When you ask me to side with you, you may perhaps mean that I shall be at liberty, and that when you expel Wiggins you will allow me to go also.”
At this Leon looked down in evident embarrassment.
“Well—not—yet,” he said, slowly. “In time, of course; but it can not all be done just at once, you know.”
“What can not be done at once?”
“Your—your freedom.”
“Why not?”
“Well, there are—a—certain difficulties in the way.”
“Then what can I gain by siding with you? Why should I cast off Wiggins, and take a new jailer who has done to me a wrong far more foul and far more intolerable than any that Wiggins ever attempted?”