Scheherazade by Florence Warden

It is well for the wounded spirit when the body falls sick in sympathy, and the piercing thoughts become blunted into vague fancies, and the heavy load of doubt and despair falls off with the responsibilities of sane and sound existence.

George Lauriston, who had been unconsciously sickening ever since the day when he was arrested, and, stupefied by misery, had gone off to prison in clothes which had been saturated with the rain, was, on the day after his conviction, too ill to stand; his skin was hot and dry, his eyes were glazed and dull, and his limbs racked with pains. The surgeon, on being sent for to see him, ordered his immediate removal to the hospital, where for three weeks he was laid up with a sharp attack of rheumatic fever. He recovered very slowly, but as this is a common case with sick prisoners, who not unnaturally prefer the relaxed discipline and better food of the hospital ward to the monotonous life and meagre fare which awaits them on their convalescence, he received no special attention on that account, and as soon as he was declared fit to be removed, he was consigned to Toulon with a batch of other convicts destined, like himself, for work in the dockyards. He was visited in his illness by Ella Millard, but he was unable either to recognise her, or to learn from her lips the painful tidings that every effort to find his wife had proved fruitless. He started on his miserable journey, therefore, without one parting word to cherish during the long months which must elapse before he could see a friend's face again, and knowing nothing of the efforts that were being made on his behalf.