of all--it was for the convict, guilty of I knew not what crimes,
and liable to be taken out of those rooms where I sat thinking, and
hanged at the Old Bailey door, that I had deserted Joe.

I would not have gone back to Joe now, I would not have gone
back to Biddy now, for any consideration: simply, I suppose, be-
cause my sense of my own worthless conduct to them was greater
than every consideration. No wisdom on earth could have given
me the comfort that I should have derived from their simplicity
and fidelity; but I could never, never, never, undo what I had
done.

In every rage of wind and rush of rain, I heard pursuers. Twice,
I could have sworn there was a knocking and whispering at the
outer door. With these fears upon me, I began either to imagine
or recall that I had had mysterious warnings of this man's ap-
proach. That, for weeks gone by, I had passed faces in the streets
which I had thought like his. That, these likenesses had grown
more numerous, as he, coming over the sea, had drawn nearer.
That, his wicked spirit had somehow sent these messengers to mine,
and that now on this stormy night he was as good as his word, and
with me.

Crowding up with these reflections came the reflection that I
had seen him with my childish eyes to be a desperately violent
man; that I had heard that other convict reiterate that he had
tried to murder him; that I had seen him down in the ditch, tear-
ing and fighting like a wild beast. Out of such remembrances I
brought into the light of the fire, a half-formed terror that it might
not be safe to be shut up there with him in the dead of the wild
solitary night. This dilated until it filled the room, and impelled
me to take a candle and go in and look at my dreadful burden.

He had rolled a handkerchief round his head, and his face was
set and lowering in his sleep. But he was asleep, and quietly too,
though he had a pistol lying on the pillow. Assured of this, I soft-
ly removed the key to the outside of his door, and turned it on him
before I again sat down by the fire. Gradually I slipped from the
chair and lay on the floor. When I awoke without having parted in
my sleep with the perception of my wretchedness, the clocks of
the Eastward churches were striking five, the candles were wasted

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