the side of a fire-escape sort of staircase,
planted them, for the most part, side by side, and ran a good broad
veranda along the front. He or his tenants planted trees as well--trees
that once gave the straight broad road which ran down to the strawberry
and rhubarb fields quite a countrified air.

The houses are there still, but many of them have been found substantial
enough to bear a couple of floors on the top of the old structure; and
some of the trees are still in their old places--vigorous old fellows of
artful nature, who declined to trust their roots where they would be
poisoned by the company's gas mains or cut off by the picks and shovels
of the navvies at work on the main drainage scheme. Consequently, they
lived, though in a sad, decrepit, mutilated way; bent back, beheaded,
carved and cropped--limbless dwarfs, for the most part, but always ready
to put forth plenty of tender, green leaves in the spring-time, and to
make a litter of the dead early in the autumn, while the country trees
were still in full costume.

The road--which ran at right angles out of what was once a highly
respectable retired-tradesman thoroughfare, with gardens rich in lilac
and laburnum, now all busy shops--no longer lost itself in rhubarb
gardens, but was carried on through miles of crowded streets; and it was
through these, by an ingenious short cut and long fare process, that a
hansom cab was being driven, till Queen Charlotte's Road was reached,
and a signal given for the man to stop by a semaphore use of Brettison's
gouty umbrella.

Stratton gazed wonderingly at the neat, green-verandahed cottage,
half-hidden by the cropped trees and a well kept privet hedge, and noted
as they entered the gate that there was a cane armchair just outside the
French window, sheltered by the broad veranda, and that there were many
wheel-marks on the gravel, suggestive of perambulators and children;
but, in its well painted, clean windows, carefully tended garden, and
general aspect of comfort, the place was anything but that where
Stratton had expected to find an escaped convict confined.

Hardly a word had been said during the drive out, but Stratton had quite
made up his mind what to do. He felt that he would be running counter
to his friend's wishes, and might seem unmerciful, but at the cost of
any suffering to Myra he felt that it was the best thing, and would
result in saving her future cares.

They were met at the door by the come