A Crime on Canvas by Fred M. White — Read

LAWRENCE HATTON'S first impulse was to laugh. He felt a hysterical grip at his throat. There was something almost humorous in this meeting. For here was the very last person in the world that he expected to see; the last person whom he would have desired to see had the matter been left to his own free choice. Of all the folk he would have chosen to share his solitude and give him the encouragement he needed, no persons were more remote than those with whom he had been associated in the old days when he was a happy youth with all the world before him. He checked the impulse. A physical weakness had suddenly caught him and held him firm.

All his strength and manhood seemed to have departed from him. Just for the time being he had forgotten that the hour was getting late, and that he had not yet breakfasted. He sat on the seat, feeling very much like a child that has lost itself in some fierce, selfish crowd. He did not in the least look like a man who had been an athlete in his day. Even yet he did not fully realize that he was in the open sunshine. He could not grasp the exquisite beauty of the tender spring green. The subtle fragrance of the lilacs touched him not at all. If the roar of the traffic in the distant Strand caught his ear, it was drowned by the dreadful clamour of a remorseless bell. He could still hear the echo of iron heels on flagged pavements, and the never-ending click of keys in ceaseless locks. Yet it seemed impossible to believe that he had only come out of gaol that morning, and that, not two hours before, the doors of Wandsworth Gaol had closed upon him. It was nearly three years since he had last looked upon a green tree or a tender blossom. He was trying to understand what it all meant. Then the feeling of weakness came over him again and he closed his eyes as if in sleep.