Meanwhile, Morton, after vainly attempting Birnie’s window, which the traitor had previously locked and barred against the escape of his intended victim, crept rapidly along the roof, screened by the parapet not only from the shot but the sight of the foe. But just as he gained the point at which the lane made an angle with the broad street it adjoined, he cast his eyes over the parapet, and perceived that one of the officers had ventured himself to the fearful bridge; he was pursued--detection and capture seemed inevitable. He paused, and breathed hard. He, once the heir to such fortunes, the darling of such affections!--he, the hunted accomplice of a gang of miscreants! That was the thought that paralysed--the disgrace, not the danger. But he was in advance of the pursuer--he hastened on--he turned the angle--he heard a shout behind from the opposite side--the officer had passed the bridge: “it is but one man as yet,” thought he, and his nostrils dilated and his hands clenched as he glided on, glancing at each casement as he passed. Now as youth and vigour thus struggled against Law for life, near at hand Death was busy with toil and disease. In a miserable grabat, or garret, a mechanic, yet young, and stricken by a lingering malady contracted by the labour of his occupation, was slowly passing from that world which had frowned on his cradle, and relaxed not the gloom of its aspect to comfort his bed of Death. Now this man had married for love, and his wife had loved him; and it was the cares of that early marriage which had consumed him to the bone. But extreme want, if long continued, eats up love when it has nothing else to eat. And when people are very long dying, the people they fret and trouble begin to think of that too often hypocritical prettiness of phrase called “a happy release.” So the worn-out and half-famished wife did not care three straws for the dying husband, whom a year or two ago she had vowed to love and cherish in sickness and in health. But still she seemed to care, for she moaned, and pined, and wept, as the man’s breath grew fainter and fainter. “Ah, Jean!” said she, sobbing, “what will become of me, a poor lone widow, with nobody to work for my bread?” And with that thought she took on worse than before. “I am stifling,” said the dying man, rolling round his ghastly eyes. “How hot it is! Open the window; I should like to see the light--daylight once again.” “Mon Dieu! what whims he has, poor man!” muttered the woman, without stirring. The poor wretch put out his skeleton hand and clutched his wife’s arm. “I sha’n’t trouble you long, Marie! Air--air!” “Jean, you will make yourself worse--besides, I shall catch my death of cold. I have scarce a rag on, but I will just open the door.”