One misty but pleasant morning of the early autumn, a four-wheeled
cab was drawn up against the kerb immediately opposite the portals of
a London penitentiary. A wizened and undersized young man with black
hair, a short bristling moustache, and his hands in his pockets, stood
with his back to this vehicle. Upon his not particularly agreeable
countenance was a curious air of expectancy.
Ever and anon the young man might have been seen to take out his watch.
By the manner in which he regarded it, it was to be surmised that he
was growing impatient. He began to pace up and down the pavement in
front of the prison. Already he had been waiting more than an hour. It
began to seem that he whom he awaited would never appear.
At last there stepped through the sombre portals of the gaol an
extremely slight figure, rather above than below the middle height.
It was that of a young man. His hands were remarkably slender and
delicate; his eyes were large and deep yet extraordinarily luminous;
his hair was shaved close to his head. The tardy beams of the sun which
were beginning to creep over the great city declared his gaunt face to
be suffused by a somewhat curious pallor. In the centre of the right
cheek was a slight yet almost hideous natural disfigurement.
Scarcely had this fragile figure emerged from the portals of the gaol,
than the wizened and undersized young man, who had been pacing the
flags of the pavement for some little time past, turned and beheld it.
At once he made towards him. Quite suddenly, however, he stopped, as
if in the throes of a profound bewilderment. An expression of pain and
confusion overspread his face.
In the next moment, however, he had gone forward again. It was as
though an irresistible impulse had driven him.
“Why--why,” he said, peering into the great and luminous eyes of the
man who had issued from the portals of the gaol, “can--can it be Luney?”
He who was addressed in this singular manner replied by taking a hand
of the speaker’s in each of his own, and by saluting him upon the
forehead.