Excerpt: ...your friends can afford it, go down to the South at once. You will find it easier there. There's your cab. You have some money, have you not?" "Plenty, thank you, doctor," Rowan answered. "You've been kind to me, sir," he added. "Thank you!" "There wasn't much I could do," the doctor answered, helping him into the cab, "except to get you out of this hole. Make the most of your time now. Good luck to you!" The cab rolled off. Rowan, after the first few minutes' exhaustion, due to his unaccustomed preparations, leaned forward on the seat, looking out with hungry, wistful eyes upon the world which he had scarcely hoped to see again. Very soon the full flood of London traffic was flowing past him, the streams of men and women jostling one another upon the pavements, the long, tangled thread of moving vehicles, taximeter cabs, hansoms, and wagons. The sun was shining, the faces of the people seemed to him, accustomed to the white, hopeless countenances of the men he had passed in his daily exercises and in the prison infirmary, unusually buoyant and cheerful. It was a glad world, this, into which he had come, a world which he was so soon to leave. It was hard to think he was free only that he might crawl away into some corner where he could die. The cab stopped at last before a block of offices in a by-street of the city. Rowan reluctantly alighted, and crossing the pavement entered the building. He passed through a swing door to a desk. A small boy poked his head out of an inquiry office. "Can you tell me if Miss Rowan is employed here?" Rowan asked. "Yes, but you can't see her," the small boy answered. "She's in with the guv'nor now." Rowan hesitated. "Perhaps you will kindly tell her, when she is disengaged," he said, "that her brother is here, and would like to speak to her for a moment." The office-boy withdrew his head, but he seemed uncertain. Rowan seated himself upon a hard bench set against the wall. On a small round table in front of him were...
