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MASTER AND MAN

CHAPTER XXX

“THE NOBLE UNKNOWN”

crawled into the vehicle as though those heavy chains still dangled about his legs. Nothing was so strange as the sudden cessation of the horrid jingle which had marked and mocked every movement of his body for four whole months. He felt quite lost without it, and he clambered into the curricle without a word. Daintree cracked his whip, and that was the sole sound from either of them in the first half-hour of keen and starlit freedom.

“Feel cold, Erichsen?”

“No.”

“Because you can have my coat if you do. My things are thicker. Only say the word.”

He said nothing; such gratitude as he felt in his degraded heart was not yet so poignant as to need expression; it was a very vague, dull sense at present. But Daintree understood: he had simply to sit next that silent, aged, callous figure to understand all.

They drove on to Maitland, where they supped handsomely and lay all night. In the morning Tom was well 307