"May I ask, how?"

"Certainly; companions in misfortune have no secrets. My wife was thrown from her horse; her beautiful neck was broken. I had no son. We Lechesters are perhaps a little wild. Odo was certainly wild. Well, grief made me eccentric. I threw up my career. I was young then, like you. I resigned; I went down to Cornwall; I built a hut among the rocks, and said I would live a hermit's life. I did so. I began to feel better. The sea soothed me; I learnt much from Nature. You see, I had lived hitherto all my days with men. If I had stayed there, I should have written something great. But there were men who had their eyes on me. My property is large, you know; trustees or guardians do not get pay direct; but there are indirect profits in managing estates.

My wife was dead; her friends did not trouble to protect me. Perhaps I did seem eccentric. Hermits are out of date. For years it has been the custom to put Lechesters in an asylum. I was put here; but not so easily as you. I fought; it was no use. I might as well have been calm."

"And you have been here all these years?"

"All these years, but not without trying to escape. I pretended to be harmlessly mad--quite satisfied with my condition. I was allowed to wander in the grounds. One day I got up a tree, and before they could follow I was on the wall, I dropped over but broke my leg. Well, I recovered, but I still limp a little; after a while, I went into the grounds with a keeper. I tried cunning. I became harmlessly mad again--my fancy was to fly kites. To one kite I attached a long letter with an account of my imprisonment. I let it loose, and it fell in the midst of Stirmingham. But it was no good--it made a stir--people came here, and I answered their questions calmly. No good. They were determined to see that I was mad. If I misspelt a single word in a sentence, it was a proof that a highly-educated mind had partially broken down. Like you, I got violent--I tried to despatch a warder and get out. Ever since then I have been in this room."

"Two years?"

"Two years. Hush--eat your dinner--Davidson comes."

The picture fell into its place, and Aymer tried to eat the dinner, which had grown cold.

VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER ELEVEN.

After Davidson was gone with the tray, Aymer could hear him opening other doors along the corridor, and waited till all was quiet.

"Fulk!"

"Aymer!"

The picture was lifted, and Fulk's head appeared in the orifice.

"Remember," he said, "your first object is to get strong; unless you get strong, neither of us can escape. Therefore, eat and drink, and above all, sleep. If you fidget yourself, you will waste away. The sooner you get strong, the sooner you will get out and find your Violet. Push your armchair up close under this picture, and speak low, lest a warder should steal along on tiptoe. Take a book in your hand as if reading."

Aymer did as he was told. Fulk's head receded. "It is difficult for me to keep long in that position," he said; "I am not tall enough. But we can talk just as well."

"How came that hole in the wall?" asked Aymer.

"How came your book published?" said Fulk. "By the same process-- patience and perseverance. No credit to me though. When a man is confined for two years in one room, he is glad enough of something to do."

"Why did you make such a hole--how did you do it? It was very clever."

"It was very easy. The poker did a part, the steel to sharpen the dinner knife did another part!"

"But were they not afraid to leave such instruments in your room?"

"Not they. Theodore knows very well that I am not mad. He knows that I have too much mind to attempt suicide. As to the warders, they are strong, their clothes are impenetrable to an ordinary stab. Besides, I feign to be harmless, and at last worn out."

"There is no poker in my room," said Aymer, "and they have taken the knives away."

"That is because, as yet, they do not know your temperament. They think they know mine. So far as conveniences, and even luxuries, are concerned, certainly Theodore does not treat me amiss. I have everything I could have if I were free--papers, books--everything but tools or liberty--but I can improvise tools."

"How is it they do not discover this hole in the wall?"

"Simply because on your side it is hidden by the picture, and behind the picture I have preserved the papering. On my side, it is hidden by a mirror; when I open the aperture, I unscrew the mirror."

"But how did you know there was a picture on this side?"

"A person who was confined as you are told me."

"Was he sane then? What became of him?"

"Don't ask me. He was sane. It was a terrible disappointment when he went."

"But did he not return to get you out?"

"You do not comprehend. He lies in the grave. It is my belief--but I should alarm you."

"They killed him?"

"Well, not so violent as that. He died--that is it--before our arrangements were complete."

"Then you have tried to escape with others?"

"Yes, three times, and three times accident has baulked it. For that reason I wish you to get strong speedily, lest you should be removed to another room--"

"Or the grave!"

"Let us talk on other subjects. You do not ask how the hole was made, nor why. I will tell you. In the first place, it was made because I had hopes of escaping through your room, which was then unoccupied, and the door left open. That was vain, for it was afterwards occupied; then the hole was enlarged to let me and one of your predecessors converse, and to let him get into my room, as you will have to do."

"Why?"

"Because your window is a French one; mine has a bar or upright up the centre, which is an essential element of escape."

"Go on--how did you make the hole?"

"With the steel and with the poker--grinding the bricks into dust, and mingling the dust with the ashes of the fire, so that the warder himself carried them away."

"And why not escape this way?"

"Because, in the first place, the door of that room is kept locked; secondly, because it opens also into the same corridor, and at the end of that corridor is the guard-room, where there is always a warder.

Your bell rings in that room."

"How did you learn all these things?"

"How did you learn all the little traits of human nature, which the reviewers say you put in your book? By observation, of course. I had to walk along that corridor to reach the grounds, when I was allowed to go out."

"But you could bore a hole into the corridor?"

"Yes, and the bits of broken plaster would tell the story--that would be simple. Besides, to what end? Once I thought of boring _under_ the corridor."

"How do that?"

"By lifting up one of the planks of the floor here; there is a s.p.a.ce between the flooring and the ceiling, and that corridor has a kind of tunnel along under it. What for? why the hot-water pipes, to warm the cells, are carried along it--the cells of the violent, whose rooms have no fire-grates--that is of no use, for the tunnel at one end comes to the furnaces, where there is usually a man, neither could I get through the heat. At the other there is the thick outer wall of stone, and just beneath is Theodore's own room--his ears are sharp. Useless, my friend.

This knowledge of the premises seems to you wonderful, simply because you have been here so short a time. Why, I have never seen the outside of this side of the building, except a partial glimpse when I was brought, gagged and bound, in a closed carriage; yet look at this."