Was it possible that this stolidly respectable person was of the same blood as one of the most notorious criminals in the country?
"Yes, sir, my name was Selden, and he is my younger brother.

We humoured him too much when he was a lad and gave him his own way in everything until he came to think that the world was made for his pleasure, and that he could do what he liked in it.

Then as he grew older he met wicked companions, and the devil entered into him until he broke my mother's heart and dragged our name in the dirt.

From crime to crime he sank lower and lower until it is only the mercy of God which has snatched him from the scaffold; but to me, sir, he was always the little curly-headed boy that I had nursed and played with as an elder sister would.

That was why he broke prison, sir.