Page:Marsh--The seen and the unseen.djvu/67

Rh "You will remember that, some days ago, I received a letter from my wife. In that letter she told me that she was always with me in the jail, and that I was to watch for her." Solly paused. The governor made a slight gesture as of interruption; but then seemed to change his mind, and the man continued.

"I did watch. It seemed to me that sometimes I felt her touch, that I heard the rustle of her garments, that I even heard her voice. But the consciousness of these things was such a faint one that I supposed, my attention being so acutely strained, that I had allowed myself to be deceived by my imagination. Until last night." Solly paused again. This time the governor made no attempt at interruption. "Last night I could not sleep. I lay, dreaming, wide awake. I was wondering where my wife was, and what she was doing, and whether she was thinking of me, as I was thinking then of her, when—I felt a touch upon my lips, and found that my wife was in my arms. I don't think that I was startled, because I had half expected that she would come to me in some such way as that. But I was very glad. We sat together on the side of the bed, and she talked to me and I to her—as Mr. Slater says, we carried on—until Mr. Slater entered."

"Yes," said Warder Slater, "when I had had enough of listening, and wondering whoever could be carrying on with Solly, I opened the door soft like, so that I might catch 'em at it, whoever it was, and I saw Solly sitting on the side of the bed, and someone—I couldn't quite make out who, because I don't mind owning that I felt a bit flurried, because how anybody, let alone a woman, could have got in to Solly