or months he lay concealed in the attics until the first search of
the police should be over. Then I gave him employment here, as you have
seen, though by his rough and overbearing manners he made my own life
miserable, and that of his fellow-masters unbearable. You have been with
us for four months, Mr. Weld, but no other master endured him so long. I
apologise now for all you have had to submit to, but I ask you what else
could I do? For his dead mother's sake I could not let harm come to him
as long as it was in my power to fend it off. Only under my roof could
he find a refuge--the only spot in all the world--and how could I keep
him here without it exciting remark unless I gave him some occupation? I
made him English master therefore, and in that capacity I have protected
him here for three years. You have no doubt observed that he never
during the daytime went beyond the college grounds. You now understand
the reason. But when to-night you came to me with your report of a man
who was looking through his window, I understood that his retreat was at
last discovered. I besought him to fly at once, but he had been
drinking, the unhappy fellow, and my words fell upon deaf ears. When at
last he made up his mind to go he wished to take from me in his flight
every shilling which I possessed. It was your entrance which saved me
from him, while the police in turn arrived only just in time to rescue
you. I have made myself amenable to the law by harbouring an escaped
prisoner, and remain here in the custody of the inspector, but a prison
has no terrors for me after what I have endured in this house during the
last three years."

"It seems to me, Doctor," said the inspector, "that, if you have broken
the law, you have had quite enough punishment already."

"God knows I have!" cried Dr. McCarthy, and sank his haggard face upon
his hands.

III

B. 24

I told my story when I was taken, and no one would listen to me. Then I
told it again at the trial--the whole thing absolutely as it happened,
without so much as a word added. I set it all out truly, so help me God,
all that Lady Mannering said and did, and then all that I had said and
done, just as it occurred. And what did I get for it? "The prisoner put
forward a rambling and inconsequential statement, incredible in its
details, and unsupported by any shred of corroborative evidence." That
was what one of the London papers said, and others let it pass as if I
had