"A TEDIOUS ROAD THE WEARY WRETCH RETURNS."
Mrs. Layburne poured out half a tumbler of brandy, propped the sick man's head upon her arm, and put the glass to his lips. He drank eagerly, gasping as he drank.
"Good!" he muttered, "that does me good, sister."
"Hush! not that word here, for your life."
"Not much use in saying it, eh! when it's no more than a word? Give me some more."
"No, you have had enough for the present. How long have you been out of prison?"
"How do you know I have been in prison?"
"Do you think I don't know gaol fever and gaol clothes? You have got them both upon you. You have escaped out of some gaol."
"Guildford, last night. I was in the infirmary; got out at midnight, when nurse and warder were both asleep. I had shammed dying, and they had given me over and made themselves comfortable for the night—topers both. I tore up my bed-clothes and let myself down out of the window, dropped into the governor's garden, as neatly as you like for a sick un, and trudged along the roads till daybreak, when I hid behind a haystack, dozed there, and shivered there, and had bad dreams there all day; then, with nightfall, up and on my legs again till I got here. And now perhaps you'll find me a corner to lie in somewhere."
"He must not see you, or you'll soon be in gaol again."