"What have they come here for?" asked the prisoner, amazed.

"I'll tell you," said Laval, more generous than he had designed to be;
but he knew how he should wish, when the sea rolled between him and
Foray, that he had spoken every comfortable word in his knowledge to
this man; he knew it by his recent experiences of remorse in reference
to his buried wife, and was wise enough to profit by the
knowledge;--"I'll tell you. It's on your account. They were afraid
somebody that didn't know how long you have been here, and how much you
have suffered, would get the place; so they all came together and asked
for it. They had a pretty little house up nigh the barracks, but they
gave it up to come here. You'll see Montier to-night. For when I go
back to your room with you, then I'm going off to--to"----he hesitated,
for foremost among his instructions was this, that he should remain
silent about his purpose of returning home; he was not to go as a
messenger for the prisoner across the ocean to their native land----"to
my business," he said. "If you'll be kind to him, you will make
something by it. I thought I would tell you,--so, when you saw a
strange face in your room, you would know what it meant without
asking."

"I thank you," said the prisoner; and to the jailer it now seemed as if
the figure of the man beside him grew in height and strength,--as if he
trod the ground less feebly and listlessly while he spoke these words.
A divine consolation must have strengthened him even then, or he could
never have added with such emphasis, "Wherever you go, take this my
assurance with you,--you have not been cruel or careless. You have done
as well as you could. I thank you for it."

"You don't ask me where I'm going," said the jailer, after a silence