"I merely said that that was what I ought to do. I know well enough that I shan't do it, but the reason is far beneath that which you are good enough to hint at. I'm a broken man, Whitley; what I have gone through in the past few months has smashed my nerve. You can't understand that--I don't expect you to. But if I should meet those two old men when I leave this house, I should probably run away from them and try to hide." "But what _will_ you do?" he queried. "What can I do, more than I've been doing?" Again a silence intervened. "I wish I knew how to advise you," Whitley said at length. "If there were only some way in which you might shake off this wretched hired spy!" "I can't. If I dodge him, he has only to wait until I report myself again to the prison authorities. The one thing I can do is to relieve you of my threatening presence, and I'll do that now--to-night, while the going is good." He was at the end of his resources, as I knew he must be, and he made no objections. But at train-time he got up and put on his overcoat to accompany me as far as the station. It was a rough night outside, and I tried to dissuade him, but he wouldn't have it that way. "No," he said; "it's my privilege to speed the parting guest, if I can do no more than that," and so we breasted the spitting snow-storm which was sweeping the empty streets, tramping in silence until we reached the shelter of the train-shed. It was after the train had whistled for the crossing below the town that Whitley asked me again what I intended doing. I answered him frankly because it was his due. "It has come down to one of two things: day-labor, in a field where a man is merely a number on the pay-roll--or that other road which is always open to the prison-bird." He put his hand on my shoulder. "You are not going to take the other road, Weyburn," he said gravely. "I hope not--I hope I shan't be driven to." "You mustn't make it conditional. I know you are not a criminal; you were not a criminal when you were convicted. You can't afford to begin to be one now." "Neither can I afford to starve," I interposed. "Other men live by their wits, and so can I, if I'm driven to it. But I'll play fair with you, Whitley. So long as I can keep body and soul together, with a pick and shovel, or any other implement that comes to hand, I'll stick. I owe you that much, if only for the reason that you are--with the single exception of an old police chief who lives at the other edge of the State--the one really human being I've met since I shook hands with the warden."