Page:The Mystery of a Hansom Cab.djvu/132

128 keep his secret. It was the natural revulsion of feeling after the unnatural life he had been leading since his arrest. When one is young and healthy, and has all the world before him, it is a terrible thing to contemplate with serenity a sudden death. And yet, in spite of his joy at being delivered from the hangman's rope, there mingled with his delight the horror of that secret which the dying woman had told him with such malignant joy.

"Why did she tell me? Oh! why did she tell me?" he cried, wringing his hands, as he paced restlessly up and down his dark cell. "It would have been better for her to have died in silence, and not bequeathed me this legacy of sorrow."

He was so greatly disturbed over the matter that the gaoler seeing his haggard face next morning, muttered to himself that "He war blest if the swell warn't sorry he war safe."

So, while Brian was pacing up and down his cell during the weary watches of the night, Madge in her own room, was kneeling beside her bed and thanking God for His great mercy; while Calton, the good fairy of the two lovers, was hurrying towards the humble abode of Mrs. Rawlins, familiarly known as Mother Guttersnipe. Kilsip was beside him, and they were talking eagerly about the providential appearance of the invaluable witness.

"What I like," observed Kilsip, in his soft purring tone, "is the sell it will be for that Gorby. He was so certain that Mr. Fitzgerald was the man, and when he gets off to-morrow he will be in a rage."

"Where was Sal the whole time," asked Calton, absently, not thinking what the detective was saying.

"Ill," answered Kilsip. "After she left the Chinaman she went into the country, caught cold by falling into some river, and then ended up by getting brain fever. Some people found her, took her in, and nursed her. When she got well she came back to her grandmother's."

"But why didn't the people who nursed her tell her she was wanted? They must have seen the papers."

"Not they," retorted the detective "They knew nothing."

"Vegetables!" muttered Calton, contemptuously. "How can people be so ignorant? Why, all Australia has been