t the black refused to give any information on the subject.
The sun was just going down behind the trees as Clotelle entered the
prison to see Jerome for the last time. He was to die on the next day.
Her face was bent upon her hands, and the gushing tears were forcing
their way through her fingers. With beating heart and trembling hands,
evincing the deepest emotion, she threw her arms around her lover's neck
and embraced him. But, prompted by her heart's unchanging love, she had
in her own mind a plan by which she hoped to effect the escape of him
to whom she had pledged her heart and hand. While the overcharged clouds
which had hung over the city during the day broke, and the rain fell
in torrents, amid the most terrific thunder and lightning, Clotelle
revealed to Jerome her plan for his escape.
"Dress yourself in my clothes," said she, "and you can easily pass the
jailer."
This Jerome at first declined doing. He did not wish to place a
confiding girl in a position where, in all probability, she would have
to suffer; but being assured by the young girl that her life would not
be in danger, he resolved to make the attempt. Clotelle being very tall,
it was not probably that the jailer would discover any difference in
them.
At this moment, she took from her pocket a bunch of keys and unfastened
the padlock, and freed him from the floor.
"Come, girl, it is time for you to go," said the jailer, as Jerome was
holding the almost fainting girl by the hand.
Being already attired in Clotelle's clothes, the disguised man embraced
the weeping girl, put his handkerchief to his face, and passed out of
the jail, without the keeper's knowing that his prisoner was escaping in
a disguise and under cover of the night.
CHAPTER XX. THE HERO OF MANY ADVENTURES
JEROME had scarcely passed the prison-gates, ere he reproached himself
for having taken such a step. There seemed to him no hope of escape out
of the State, and what was a few hours or days at most, of life to him,
when, by obtaining it, another had been sacrificed. He was on the eve
of returning, when he thought of the last words uttered by Clotelle.
"Be brave and determined, and you will still be free." The words sounded
like a charm in his ears and he went boldly forward.
Clotelle had provided a suit of men's clothes and had placed them where
her lover could get them, if he should succeed in getting out.
Returning to Mr. Wilson's barn, the fugitive cha
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