Alice, who was standing a slight figure on the skyline. There was a brief scuffle, a blow, and one of the convicts stumbled into a mass of bracken. A warder in the distance shouted and began to run towards his colleague, who sat, with his head still buried in his hands. Intensely interested, Alice stood watching. A pair of hands reached out of the bracken and pulled her down. The hands blindfolded her eyes, and hot lips were pressed to hers convulsively. She tried to shout, but words failed her. When she opened her eyes at length the world ceased to revolve dazedly around her.
“Hugh!” she gasped. “Hugh! Is it possible! What has happened?”
She repeated the question dreamily, as if not comprehending what she was saying, as if she did not contemplate a reply. For the miracle had happened, and here was Hugh Grenfell in the flesh. There was not too much flesh, as Alice could see, he was lean and brown and hard, and there was an expression in his eyes that brought the tears to hers. Her hands were in his, and she remarked the workings of the muscles in his throat, as if he were trying to speak and could not.
“Hugh!” she whispered. “It’s a dream, isn’t it? It can’t be really you!”
Grenfell nodded. The words were a long time coming. He would recover himself presently. Alice had forgotten where she was and was taking no heed of the perils of the situation. At any moment they might be disturbed, but so far as she was concerned they might have been in the centre of a desert. To be interrupted was a contingency she had not considered. For here was Hugh, dear old Hugh, holding her hands in his and looking into her eyes with speechless rapture.
“It seems marvellous,” Alice went on in the same intense whisper. “Are you not going to speak, darling?”
Hugh nodded again. If a word at that moment had been the price of his freedom he could not have uttered it. All he could do was to clasp the girl’s hands and gaze into her eyes as if trying to recollect who she was and with what exquisite moment of his past she was connected with.
“It is Alice, isn’t it?” the hoarse words came at last.
“Oh, yes, yes. Alice has come to see you. What a marvellous accident! I feel as if I shall wake presently and find that it’s a dream. Won’t you kiss me, dear?”
Still the man made no sign. Very slowly indeed everything was coming back to him. He had been so long out of the world, that it was in sooth little more than a vague memory.
“It is really and truly you?” he asked.
“Really and truly me, and nobody else,” Alice said, with the tears in her eyes.
“And you haven’t the remotest idea how you got here?”
“Indeed, I haven’t. I blundered upon you and the—the—others by accident. I was taking a walk this way and had not the slightest idea that a gang was working here. The warder seemed to be asleep. He did not call out and order me back as I had expected. When I saw you, I would have come on, had there been a regiment of soldiers in the way—My poor, dear boy. How changed you look, and how rough and hard your hands are! I used to think they were the kindest hands in the world. Hugh, I must get you out of this; we must find some way of escape. We must expose the wicked conspiracy that brought you to this awful spot. I am beginning to find things out. I am watching and waiting. If I could only discover some real friend who would help me, I might be successful. I want a man, cool, clever, and resolute, and I am certain, that we could reach the truth in time. Raymond Draycott——”
Hugh started into something like life for the first time.
“I had forgotten him,” he said. “He is your guardian. He is kind to you, Alice?”
“He is utterly indifferent, Hugh. I am free to come and go as I like, so long as I don’t worry him. He is a bad man, Hugh, a worse man than Martin Faber.”
Hugh passed a hand nervously over his forehead.
“I am trying to piece the puzzle together,” he said. “I know a great deal, if I could only get the chance to say it. I suspect the full significance of the conspiracy. If only I could—but that is out of the question. They took good care of that. They took——”
Alice laid a hand on his arm again. She looked at him imploringly.
“Hugh, you have only kissed me once,” she whispered. “Don’t you know that I love you still, love you more than ever and know that you are as innocent as a child?”
The man in the convict garb kissed her again, holding her to his heart.
“Forgive me, darling,” he whispered. “I couldn’t help it. When I looked up and saw you standing there it seemed as if an angel from heaven had come down to help me. Our warder was taken suddenly ill, and not the first time lately, though they don’t know down yonder. He used to be one of the boys in the old garden at one time. Heart trouble, I fancy. But don’t let me waste the precious time, Alice. How I have longed to see you! I—I did not know whether you still cared for me till I saw your eyes just now——”
“For ever, Hugh!” Alice whispered. “As if I could cease to love you, Hugh! I knew from the first you were innocent. It was a great shock to me when I returned from Germany and found that you had been sentenced to penal servitude. I wondered why I got no reply to my letters, dear. But come along with me, Hugh. You cannot go back to that place now.”
Hugh Grenfell hesitated. Here was the chance of a lifetime. But he shook his head.
“It can’t be done like that, Alice,” he said. “I should be detected at once within an hour, and you have been seen here. I have thought of a plan for escape. If I could get away from here for a week and and no suspicion were aroused, I could prove my innocence. I have my case all written out and stowed away in the lining of my coat. I was planning some means of sending it to you when this glorious opportunity came along. Here it is. You will have to find some man who will——”
“I know, I know,” Alice said eagerly. “There will be no trouble about money. Mr. Draycott is my guardian, but I can borrow a thousand pounds if necessary without his knowing anything about it, Hugh. What am I to do next?”
“Write to Russell Clench—you will find his address on the paper I have given you. Ask him to come and see you secretly. Then you can discuss the plan with him. Now I must go before they miss me. Good-bye, and God bless you, darling.”
Alice caught her lover by the arm. Her eyes were blazing.
“This warder of yours,” she gasped. “He will have to leave the prison; they can’t have invalids here. Tell me his name. I have a scheme, Hugh, a splendid idea. Give me the name, at once, dear.”
III. — AT THE WARDER’S COTTAGE
“What good could that do?” Hugh asked. “My dear girl, you must realise that you are proposing something very serious.”
A sigh broke from Alice’s lips. With all her quickness, Alice had not grasped the situation yet. All the same, Hugh Grenfell was very real. He was terribly drawn and thin, and his face wore a hard, hunted look, while that horrible drab uniform brought the tears to Alice’s eyes. The mere look of it seemed to take the warmth out of the sunshine and to depress Alice, till she
