He had spent ten years of his penal servitude in Bermuda when a man lying in Maidstone Jail under sentence of death for murder, confessed (amongst other crimes of which he disburdened his conscience) that it was he, and not the man who had been condemned, who had committed the forgery.

Investigation confirmed the truth of this statement, and Mr.Wood was "pardoned" and brought home.
He had just come.

He was the tramp.
In this life the old miser never knew that his first judgment had been the just one, but the doubt which seems always to have haunted him--whether he had not helped to condemn the innocent--was the reason of his bequest to the convict's wife, and explained much of the mysterious wording of the will.
It was a tragic tale, and gave a terrible interest to the gaunt, white-haired, shattered-looking man who was the hero of it.

It had one point of special awe for me, and I used to watch him in church and think of it, till I am ashamed to say that I forgot even when to stand up and sit down.

He had served ten years of his sentence.