"Oh, you are not going to die," cheerfully. "Let me lift you up higher on the pillows. Put your arm about me--so. You're not too heavy for me to lift." The woman, when she was arranged, took Kitty's fingers and feebly held them to her side. "It is so long since anybody took care of me. I sha'n't live till to-morrow. Don't leave me--don't go away." "I'll not go away," said Kitty. * * * * * The man whom the prison physician had waited to meet was Doctor McCall. He had followed Kitty so far, unwilling to interfere by speaking to her. But when he saw her enter Moyamensing he thought that she needed a protector. "Ha, Pollard, is this you?" stopping to shake hands. They were old acquaintances, and managed, in spite of their profession, to see something of each other every year. McCall ran up to town once or twice through the winter, and stayed at Pollard's house, and Pollard managed to spend a week or two with him in peach season. "I thought I knew your swing, McCall, two squares off. Looking for me?" "No: I followed a lady, a friend of mine, who has just gone in at the gate." "You know her, eh?" eagerly. "A most attractive little girl, I thought: She went in with the chaplain to see one of the prisoners." McCall paused, his hand on the gate. A horrible doubt stopped his heart-beating for an instant. But how utterly absurd it was! Only because this black shadow pursued him always could such a fancy have come to him. "The prisoner is a woman?" with forced carelessness. "Yes. A poor wretch brought here last spring for shoplifting. Her term's out next week. She has had a sharp attack of pneumonia, and has not much strength to bear it: she is a miserable wreck from opium-eating." "Opium-eating? Can I go in?" said McCall. "Certainly." When the woman heard their steps on the corridor she said to Catharine, "I hear my husband coming now." "That will be pleasant for you," kindly, wondering to herself what sort of a ruffian had chosen this creature for a mate and had the burden of her to carry. "Yes, I know his step," turning dully to the door. It opened, and Hugh Guinness stood on the threshold. He halted one brief moment. It seemed to Catharine that he was an older man than she had known him. "It is you, then, Louise?" he said calmly, going up to the bed and looking down on her, his hands clasped, as usual, behind him. "Yes, it is I. I thought you would like to see me and talk things over before I died, Hugh." She held out her hand, but he did not touch it. Looking at her a moment from head to foot as she lay in her unclean garments, he turned to where the other woman stood, a ray of light from the window shining on her fair hair and innocent face: "Do you know that I am Hugh Guinness, Kitty?" "I knew that long ago." "_This_," nodding down at the pallet, "is my wife. Now do you know why I could not go home to my father or to you?"