"Well, well, you need not tell, we understand all about it. You have been treated just as a great many poor girls without friends have been treated before in this city; and you got just as much intelligence, and just as much profit from your application to the 'Intelligence office,' as a great many others have done before you."
Now, it was Athalia's turn to tell her uncle all that she knew about Agnes, and then he told about his visit to the prison.
"I found," said he, "the very man I expected, or rather hoped, it might be, and it is well that I acted upon the impulse of the moment, for if I had not, I should have been too late. It is the doctor's opinion, that he will not live till morning. It seems that he got into some difficulty with the police last night, and one of them, to prevent him from stabbing another man, broke his arm."
There was a little start of surprise on my part, and that of Mrs. Morgan; but we made no interruption, and Lovetree went on with his story. We thought, though, we could not help that.
"I expect he had been drinking hard, for he tore off the bandage from his arm in the night, and when the keeper opened his cell this morning, he found him almost dead with loss of blood and vital prostration. He cannot live. They had aroused him, and I found him quite rational when I went in, and was immediately placed beyond all doubt as to the identity of the man, for he called me by name the moment he saw me."
"I am glad you have come," said he, "I can trust you, and I want to make a clean breast of it before I die. My wife and child--my last one--are in this city, and when I am gone, I want you to go and see her, and tell her, that I shall never trouble her any more; she will be glad to hear it, for she saw me last night, and I left the old lady somewhat in a fright. I cannot tell you the exact number, but I can tell you so that you can find the house easy enough. It is in W-- street."
"Oh, dear, I cannot stand it any longer," said Mrs. Morgan.
"Cannot stand it? I don't see anything that you cannot stand. You surprise me."
"Not half as much as you surprise us. We know all about it. It was him," and she pointed to me, "that knocked the ruffian down; it was him that he was about to stab when the watchman broke his arm; and it is she, uncle, Mrs. De Vrai, his wife, who is the mother of Little Katy; now, you know all about it; we know all about it."