“Let me be the first one to congratulate you, sir,” the officer added.
Mr. Schöninger did not see the hand offered him, though he replied to the words. He was looking past the officer, past the wondering faces of the guard who peeped in at the door, and his glance flashed along the corridor, through which a ray of sunlight shone from the guard-room, and fresh breezes blew. A slight quiver passed through his frame, and he seemed to be resisting an impulse to rush out of the prison.
It was only for one instant. The next, he became aware of the eyes that curiously observed him, and, by the exercise of that habit of self-control which had become to him a second nature, shut off from his face every ripple of emotion.
“I thank you, sir!” he said in answer to the warden's compliments. “And perhaps you will be so good as to send those men away from the corridor, and to let Mr. Benton know that I want to see him here immediately.”
The guard disappeared at once, one of them as messenger to Mr. Schöninger's lawyer; but the warden still lingered.
“You will want to change your clothes,” he said. “And after that, I shall be happy to place a room in my house at your disposal, where you may receive your friends and transact business till the time comes for you to go free.”
Mr. Schöninger glanced down with loathing on his prison uniform, remembering it for the first time since that day of horror and despair when he had waked from a half-swoon to find himself invested with it and laid on the narrow bed in his cell.
Perhaps the officer, too, remembered that day when he had said that he would rather resign his office than receive such a prisoner into his care, when he had exhausted arguments and persuasions to induce him to submit to prison rules, and how, when at last he had felt obliged to hint at the employment of force, he had seen the strong man fall powerless before him.
“These clothes would hardly fit Mr. Lawrence Gerald,” Mr. Schöninger remarked, smiling scornfully. “But perhaps there will be no question of his wearing them.”
The warden uttered an exclamation. “Is it Lawrence Gerald? It cannot be!” He had not been told the name.