"In the kitchen. He was shivering, so the missus thought he'd be better by the fire be-like." The ground floor of the lodge consisted of two rooms, parlour and kitchen. Barbara went to the kitchen, which was at the back, the common living-room of the family. The parlour was for ornament and state--temple and shrine for the family Bible and the family samplers, laborious works of art which adorned the walls. The sick man was lying in front of the fire, with an old potato-sack between him and the flagged floor. Barbara knelt beside him, and looked into his face, half in the red light of the fire, half in the yellow flare of the tallow candle. His eyes were glassy and dim, his cheeks were flushed, his breath laboured and rattled as it came and went. Barbara Layburne knew the symptoms well enough. It was gaol fever--a low form of typhus. That tainted breath meant infection, and the gardener's cottage swarmed with children. He must be got away from there at once, unless they were all to die. Typhus in those days was always master of the field where he had once set up his standard. The dim eyes looked at her piteously: the lips began to murmur inarticulately. "Leave us together for a few minutes, Mrs. Bond, while I hear what the poor creature has to say, and think over what I had best do with him. There is no room for him here." Mrs. Bond retired, shutting the door behind her. CHAPTER II. "A TEDIOUS ROAD THE WEARY WRETCH RETURNS." Mrs. Layburne poured out half a tumbler of brandy, propped the sick man's head upon her arm, and put the glass to his lips. He drank eagerly, gasping as he drank. "Good!" he muttered, "that does me good, sister." "Hush! not that word here, for your life." "Not much use in saying it, eh! when it's no more than a word? Give me some more." "No, you have had enough for the present. How long have you been out of prison?" "How do you know I have been in prison?" "Do you think I don't know gaol fever and gaol clothes? You have got them both upon you. You have escaped out of some gaol." "Guildford, last night. I was in the infirmary; got out at midnight, when nurse and warder were both asleep. I had shammed dying, and they had given me over and made themselves comfortable for the night--topers both. I tore up my bed-clothes and let myself down out of the window, dropped into the governor's garden, as neatly as you like for a sick un, and trudged along the roads till daybreak, when I hid behind a haystack, dozed there, and shivered there, and had bad dreams there all day; then, with nightfall, up and on my legs again till I got here. And now perhaps you'll find me a corner to lie in somewhere." "He must not see you, or you'll soon be in gaol again." "Curse him!" growled Roderick, "bears malice, does he?" "He is not likely to forget that you tried to murder him."