him alone till the afternoon. He invited him
into his room: and when he got him there, lost
no time. "Just look me in the face, Brown,"
said he quietly. Brown looked him in the face.

"Now, sir, am I mad or sane?"

Brown turned his head away. Alfred laughed.
"No, no, none of your tricks, old fellow: look
me in the face while you answer."

The man coloured. "I can't look a gentleman
like you in the face, and tell him he is mad."

"I should think not. Well, now; what shall
I give you to help me escape?"

"Hush! don't mention that, sir; it's as much
as my place is worth even to listen to you."

"Good! then I must give you as much as
your place is worth. Please to calculate that,
and name the figure."

"My place! I wouldn't lose it for a hundred
pounds."

"Exactly. Then I'll give you a hundred
guineas."

"And how am I to get my money, sir?"

"The first time you are out, come to Albion
Villa, in Barkington, and I'll have it all ready
for you."

"And suppose you were to say, ' No: you
didn't ought ever to have been confined?'"

"I must trouble you to look in my face again,
Mr. Brown. Now, do you see treason, bad faith,
avarice, ingratitude, rascality in it?"

"Not a grain of 'em," said Brown, with an
accent of conviction. "Well, now, I'll tell you
the truth; I can read a gent, by this time: and
I'm no more afeard for the money than if I had it
in my hand. But ye see my stomach won't let
me do it."

This was a sad disappointment: so sudden,
too. "Your stomach?" said he, ruefully.
"What do you mean.?"

"Ay, my stomach. Wouldn't your stomach
rise against serving a man that had done you the
worst turn one man can do another—been and
robbed you of your sweetheart."

Alfred stared with amazement.

Brown continued, and now with some
emotion: "Hannah Blake and I were very good
friends till you came, and I was thinking of asking
her to name the day; but now she won't
look at me. 'Don't come teasing me,' says she,
'I am meat for your master.' It's you that have
turned the girl's head, sir."

"Bother the women!" said Alfred cordially.
"Oh, what plagues they are! And how unjust
you are, to spite me for the fault of another.
Can I help the fools from spooning upon
me?" He reflected a moment, then burst out:
"Brown, you are a duffer—a regular duffer.
What, don't you see your game is to get me out
of the place? If you do, in forty-eight hours I
shall be married to my Julia, and that dumpling-
faced girl will be cured. But if you keep me
here, by Gee, sir, I'll make hot love to your
Hannah, boiling hot, hotter than ever was—out
of the isles of Greece. Oh! do help me out,
and I'll give you the hundred pounds, and I'll
give Hannah another hundred pounds, on condition
she marries you; and, if she won't marry
you, she shan't have a farthing, only a good
hiding."

Brown was overpowered by his maniac's logic.
"You have a head," said he; "there's my hand;
I'll go in, if I die for it."

They now put their heads together over the
means. Brown's plan was to wait, and wait, for
an opportunity. Alfred's was to make one this
very night.

"But how can I?" said Brown. "I shan't
have the key of your room. I am not on watch
in your part to-night."

"Borrow Hannah's."

"Hannah's? She has got no key of the male
patients' rooms."

"Oh yes she has; of mine, at all events."

"What makes you think that, sir?" said
Brown suspiciously.

Alfred didn't know what to say: he could not
tell him why he felt sure she had a key.

"Just go quietly and ask her for it," said he:
"don't tell her I sent you, now."

Brown obeyed, and returned in half an hour
with the key of the vacant bedroom, where the
hobbles and chains were hidden on arrival of the
justices.

"She tells me this is the only key she has of
any room in this corridor. But dear heart,"
said Brown, "how quicksighted the women are.
She said, says she, 'if it is to bring sorrowful
true lovers together again, Giles, or the like of
that, I'll try and get the key you want off Mrs.
Archbold's bunch, though I get the sack for it,'
says she. 'I know she leaves them in the parlour
at night,' says Hannah. She is a trump, you
must allow."

Alfred coloured up. He suspected he had
been unjust.

"She is a good, kind, single-hearted girl," said
he; "and neither of you shall find me ungrateful."

It was evident by the alacrity Brown now
showed, that he had got his orders from Hannah.

It was agreed that Alfred should lie down at
night in his clothes, ready to seize the right
moment; that Hannah should get the key, and
watch the coast clear, and let him out into the
corridor; and Brown get him down by a back
stairs, and out on the lawn. There he would
find a ladder close by the wall, and his own arms
and legs must do the rest.

And now Alfred was a changed creature: his
eye sparkled; he walked on air, and already
sniffed the air of liberty.

After tea Brown brought in some newspapers,
and made Alfred a signal, previously agreed on,
that the ladder was under the east wall. He
went to bed early, put on his tweed shooting-
jacket and trousers, and lay listening to the
clock with beating heart.

At first feet passed to and fro from time to
time. These became less frequent as the night
wore on.