“Well, well, I’ll be glad when it’s over — I hate these affairs …”

In the morning a light drizzle was falling, and David, after a night no more troubled than many previous nights, rose before dawn and watched a simple greyness invade the sky. Through the barred window he could soon see the prison wall, a long horizon of granite, with but two interruptions, the towers of the Cathedral, ghostly through the rain. Over the roofs there came the steady chimes, by long association more a part than a breaking of the silence; the first real sound began at seven, when the early morning train arrived from Marsland with the newspapers. David heard it steaming and clanking into the station. Only a whisper from afar; but it was the voice of Calderbury each morning, and David heard it as a friend’s.

We live in a town for years and all its voices come to us so casually and with such small effort that we hardly know them till we are about to leave, and then, into our regret comes some little thing, the rattle of a cart over cobblestones, an old cracked bell in a church tower, the shout of a boy selling newspapers; and we can answer with nothing but our love. David was leaving Calderbury that morning. He knew it, and his heart was full of love for the little town and for its people. And he remembered, as often happens on the last, the first day he had seen it — Jessie pointing across the water meadows from the train window — “There you are, David — that’s Calderbury. See the Cathedral? No, no, not there, stupid — that’s the electricity works. There!” And he remembered, smiling to himself, that habit Jessie had always had — of seeing something herself and expecting other people to see it instantly, on a mere nod. That was one of the things he had had to put up with; but he had always respected her, and people didn’t realize how shocked, as well as puzzled, he had been when … But it was all such a long time ago now, nearly three months. Questions — answers — “Now, doctor, would you mind telling us … I put it to you, Dr. Newcome … But surely, doctor … Come now, doctor, you really must explain … Don’t lie to us, Newcome …”

“I don’t lie, my friends, I can’t help it if the truth doesn’t sound true. Perhaps the truth is always strange. They say my boy Gerald never tells the truth — but he does, sometimes, often, only people don’t believe him. Truth is what is believed — a lie is what is disbelieved — how’s that for a pair of definitions? I don’t much care for them, but the world does. Let me tell the truth just once before I die. I call it love …”

The two warders got up (they had not undressed) when they saw him standing by the window, and George bade him good-morning.