Seizing the file from the little bookkeeper, Beigh commenced freeing his feet. Suddenly he stopped and whispered:
"You'd better go now. I can take care of myself, but if those cursed officers should take a notion to look around, it would go hard with you. Run, God bless you, run!"
But little Guzzy straightened himself and folded his arms.
The convict rasped away rapidly, and finally dropped the file and the fragments of the last fetter. Then he seized little Guzzy's hand.
"My friend," said he, "criminal though I am, I am man enough to appreciate your manliness and honor. I think I am smart enough to keep myself free, now I am out of jail. But, if ever you want a friend, tell Helen, she will know where I am, and I will serve you, no matter what the risk and pain."
"Thank you," said Guzzy; "but the only favor I'll ever ask of you might as well be named now, and you ought to be able to do it without risk or pain either. It's only this; be an honest man, for Helen's sake."
Beigh dropped his head.
"There are men who would die daily for the sake of making her happy, but you've put it out of their power, seeing you've married her," continued Guzzy. "I'm nothing to her, and can't be, but for her sake to-night I've broken open the gunsmith's shop, broken a jail, and"—here he stooped, and picked up a bundle—"robbed my own employer's store of a suit of clothes for you, so you mayn't be caught again in those prison stripes. If I've made myself a criminal for her sake: can't her husband be an honest man for the same reason?"
The convict wrung the hand of his preserver. He seemed to be trying to speak, but to have some great obstruction in his throat.