"I'll tell you that when the time's ripe. You'd best turn in and have some sleep; you look as though you could do with it."
"I can. Where shall I go?"
"In there," said Brack, pointing to a small room.
"It is your room."
"Never mind me. Go in and rest."
Hector was dead beat. He opened the door, he was so exhausted he fell fast asleep before he had time to undress.
Brack sat ruminating until an early hour. This discovery that his guest was Hector Woodridge stunned him, he could not comprehend it. He recollected all about the celebrated trial which resulted in Hector Woodridge being condemned to death for the murder of the husband of the woman he had become entangled with. All Yorkshire signed the petition for a reprieve and the sentence was commuted to penal servitude for life. He remembered how the shock killed Admiral Woodridge, Hector's father.
Brack went to the old black horse-hair sofa and lay down. He was soon asleep, dreaming in a few minutes, strange dreams in which convicts, Dartmoor, the Sea-mew, The Rascal, Carl Hackler, and divers and other persons and places were mixed up in the most extraordinary manner.
A knocking at the door roused Brack.
Sitting up, he rubbed his eyes, yawned, struggled to his feet. He had his sailor clothes on.