Scarcely had this fragile figure emerged from the portals of the gaol, than the wizened and undersized young man, who had been pacing the flags of the pavement for some little time past, turned and beheld it. At once he made towards him. Quite suddenly, however, he stopped, as if in the throes of a profound bewilderment. An expression of pain and confusion overspread his face. In the next moment, however, he had gone forward again. It was as though an irresistible impulse had driven him. “Why--why,” he said, peering into the great and luminous eyes of the man who had issued from the portals of the gaol, “can--can it be Luney?” He who was addressed in this singular manner replied by taking a hand of the speaker’s in each of his own, and by saluting him upon the forehead. XXXVIII When he had ensconced William Jordan in the interior of the cab Mr. James Dodson before entering the vehicle himself turned to the man on the box. “Cabby,” he said, “as it is a nice morning you can just throw back the flaps of your machine and take us for a drive round Brixton.” The cabman interpreted these instructions by uncovering the roof of the vehicle, and by driving away from the penitentiary at a regulated pace. Its two occupants were seated side by side. “Why, Luney,” said Jimmy Dodson in a voice of bewilderment, “I hardly knew you.” “Is it surprising?” said his companion. “And your voice,” said Jimmy Dodson, “I hardly recognize your voice as belonging to you either. Something seems to have happened to you.” “As you say,” said William Jordan softly, “something seems to have happened to me; but,” he added as he laid his delicate fingers upon those of his friend, “I can never forget those to whom I owe everything.” Dodson already felt a curious susceptibility to the new and strange manner of his companion. “But, you know, old boy,” said Jimmy Dodson, whose joy in their meeting was suddenly tempered by the things that were, “all this must be kept from my people all the same. You see, my father--well, my father is in the Force, and--and, well naturally, it would not be professional. And of course you are done for socially--it is no use my disguising it, is it, old boy? It is only kindness to tell you. And I should be done for socially too if any of my set knew that I had taken up with you again. And I should get sacked from the office--my screw is now three hundred a year--and of course nobody would be to blame but myself. I suppose my taking up with you again is all very weak and wrong; yet if I must tell you the truth, Luney, I have come to feel that I would rather not go on living if I have to do without you.” The last few sentences of Jimmy Dodson’s remarkable speech, the whole of which was uttered in a very rapid, mumbling, somewhat incoherent fashion, far other than the one he was wont to affect, caused a poignant expression to flit through the large and bright eyes of William Jordan.