She sprang to her feet and moved about the room restlessly. He was
sitting there, alone, waiting for the touch of the detective's hand on
his shoulder, waiting for his doom. It was her fault; she had held him
back from the release of death, had made him promise to live, to drag
through a life of shame and humiliation, an outcast, a pariah, a
creature from whom such women as herself would shrink as from something
loathsome.
The thought was intolerable. Surely he could escape; they had not got
upon his track yet. Oh, why had he not gone, while there was time?
Then she remembered that he had said that he had not enough money even
to buy another revolver; of course, he could not hope to get away
without money. A blush rose to her face; she sprang to her desk; with a
trembling hand she unlocked it and took out a five-pound note--it was
the only one she possessed, and she had been keeping it for the day,
that might so easily come, when she should lose her work and have to
fall back upon her resources. Often enough she had regarded this
five-pound note as a barrier against the dread wolf that prowled about
so many of the doors of The Jail, against absolute destitution. But,
without a moment's hesitation, she folded it and put it in an envelope;
but now she did hesitate; she stood, biting her lip softly, her brows
knit. At last she wrote on a sheet of notepaper: "I was wrong; you ought not to wait here. There is time for escape.
I would send you more than this; but it is all I have. Don't refuse
it, or I shall feel as if I were to blame for anything that may
happen to you. Oh, please go at once. Good-bye."
She was about to sign her name, but did not do so; it was better that
they should remain strangers to each other.
She went out softly, crossed the corridor on tip-toe, pushed the
envelope under his door, then knocked very gently and darted back to her
own room. Listening, with a heart that beat like a sledge-hammer falling
on an anvil, she heard him open the door, heard it close again; she
waited almost; breathlessly, and presently his step crossed the
corridor, and a piece of paper slid to her feet. She picked it up and
read: "To refuse your generous gift, to disobey your command--for to me
it is an absolute command--would be ungrateful; would be worse. I
feel as if you had taken my life into your hands and had the right
to dispose of it. I am going. If I escape----Oh, I can't write any
more; but I know you will understand. You are the most wonderful
girl, the bravest, the most generous, in the whole world Good-bye."