e with relief.

"Heerd him guggling," he said, "and thought as something were up. You
come timely, sir."

More assistance was procured, and I ordered the prisoner's removal to the
infirmary. For a minute, before following him, I was left alone with
Johnson.

"It came to a climax, then?" I said, looking the man steadily in the
face.

"He may be subject to 'em, sir", he replied, evasively.

I walked deliberately up to the closed door of the adjoining cell, which
was the last on that side of the corridor. Huddled against the massive
end wall, and half imbedded in it, as it seemed, it lay in a certain
shadow, and bore every sign of dust and disuse. Looking closely, I saw
that the trap in the door was not only firmly bolted, but _screwed into
its socket_.

I turned and said to the warder quietly,--

"Is it long since this cell was in use?"

"You're very fond of asking questions", he answered doggedly.

It was evident he would baffle me by impertinence rather than yield a
confidence. A queer insistence had seized me--a strange desire to know
more about this mysterious chamber. But, for all my curiosity, I flushed
at the man's tone.

"You have your orders", I said sternly, "and do well to hold by them. I
doubt, nevertheless, if they include impertinence to your superiors."

"I look straight on my duty, sir," he said, a little abashed. "I don't
wish to give offence."

He did not, I feel sure. He followed his instinct to throw me off the
scent, that was all.

I strode off in a fume, and after attending F---- in the infirmary, went
promptly to my own quarters.

I was in an odd frame of mind, and for long tramped my sitting-room to
and fro, too restless to go to bed, or, as an alternative, to settle down
to a book. There was a welling up in my heart of some emotion that I
could neither trace nor define. It seemed neighbour to terror, neighbour
to an intense fainting pity, yet was not distinctly either of these.
Indeed, where was cause for one, or the subject of the other? F---- might
have endured mental sufferings which it was only human to help to end,
yet F---- was a swindling rogue, who, once relieved, merited no further
consideration.

It was not on him my sentiments were wasted. Who, then, was responsible
for them?

There is a very plain line of demarcation between the legitimate spirit
of inquiry and mere apish curiosity. I could recognise it, I have no
doubt, as a rule, yet in my then mood, under the i