The pink-faced young Englishman, fresh from the old country, could not conceal in his face and attitude the fact that he was walking in the presence of the gallows whenever he entered the room.

He was, as he had confided in Cardigan, "beastly hit up" over the thing.

To feed and wash a man who would undoubtedly die, but who would be hanged by the neck until he was dead if he lived, filled him with peculiar and at times conspicuous emotions.

It was like attending to a living corpse, if such a thing could be conceived.

And Mercer had conceived it.