as he awoke, with two or three persons of the prison
around his bed, whereon he lay in a pool of blood from his arm.

It was now bandaged up again by the prison surgeon, who happened to be
in the place; and the governor's wife and servant, kind people both,
were with the patient. Esmond saw his mistress still in the room when
he awoke from his trance; but she went away without a word; though
the governor's wife told him that she sat in her room for some time
afterward, and did not leave the prison until she heard that Esmond was
likely to do well.

Days afterwards, when Esmond was brought out of a fever which he had,
and which attacked him that night pretty sharply, the honest keeper's
wife brought her patient a handkerchief fresh washed and ironed, and at
the corner of which he recognized his mistress's well-known cipher
and viscountess's crown. "The lady had bound it round his arm when he
fainted, and before she called for help," the keeper's wife said. "Poor
lady! she took on sadly about her husband. He has been buried to-day,
and a many of the coaches of the nobility went with him--my Lord
Marlborough's and my Lord Sunderland's, and many of the officers of the
Guards, in which he served in the old King's time; and my lady has been
with her two children to the King at Kensington, and asked for justice
against my Lord Mohun, who is in hiding, and my Lord the Earl of Warwick
and Holland, who is ready to give himself up and take his trial."

Such were the news, coupled with assertions about her own honesty and
that of Molly her maid, who would never have stolen a certain trumpery
gold sleeve-button of Mr. Esmond's that was missing after his fainting
fit, that the keeper's wife brought to her lodger. His thoughts followed
to that untimely grave, the brave heart, the kind friend, the gallant
gentleman, honest of word and generous of thought, (if feeble of
purpose, but are his betters much stronger than he?) who had given him
bread and shelter when he had none; home and love when he needed them;
and who, if he had kept one vital secret from him, had done that
of which he repented ere dying--a wrong indeed, but one followed by
remorse, and occasioned by almost irresistible temptation.

Esmond took his handkerchief when his nurse left him, and very likely
kissed it, and looked at the bauble embroidered in the corner. "It
has cost thee grief enough," he thought, "dear lady, so loving and so
tender. Shall I take it from th