One morning it came to her mind, How would it be for Adam to escape, and so not be there to prove the accusation he had made of Jerrem having shot the man?  With scarce more thought than she had bestowed on many another passing suggestion which seemed for the moment practical and solid, but as she turned it round lost shape and floated into air, Eve made the suggestion, and to her surprise found it seized on by Adam as an inspiration.  Why, he’d risk all so that he escaped being set face to face with Jerrem and his former mates.  Adam had but to be assured the strain would not be more than Eve’s strength could bear before he had adopted with joy her bare suggestion, clothed it with possibility, and by it seemed to regain all his past energy.  Could he but get away and Jerrem’s life be spared, all hope of happiness would not be over.  In some of those distant lands to which people were then beginning to go life might begin afresh.  And as his thoughts found utterance in speech he held out his hand to Eve, and in it she laid her own; and Adam needed nothing more to tell him that whither he went there Eve too would go.  There was no need for vows and protestations now between these two, for, though to each the other’s heart lay bare, a word of love scarce ever crossed their lips.  Life seemed too sad and time too precious to be whiled away in pleasant speeches, and often when together, burdened by the weight of all they had to say, yet could not talk about, the two would sit for hours and neither speak a word.  But with this proposition of escape a new channel was given to them, and as they discussed their different plans the dreadful shadow which at times had hung between them was rolled away and lifted out of sight.

Inspired by the prospect of action, of doing something, Adam roused himself to master all the difficulties:  his old foresight and caution began to revive, and the project, which had on one day looked like a desperate extremity, grew by the end of a week into a well-arranged plan whose success seemed more than possible.  Filled with anxiety for Eve, Reuben gave no hearty sanction to the experiment:  besides which, he felt certain that now neither Adam’s absence nor presence would in any way affect Jerrem’s fate; added to which, if the matter was detected it might go hard with Adam himself.  But his arguments proved nothing to Eve, who, confident of success, only demanded from him the promise of secrecy; after which, she thought, as some questions might be put to him, the less he knew the less he would have to conceal.

Although a prisoner, inasmuch as liberty was denied to him, Adam was in no way subjected to that strict surveillance to which those who had broken the law were supposed to be submitted.  It was of his own free will that he disregarded the various privileges which lay open to him:  others in his place would have frequented the passages, hung about the yards and grown familiar with the tap, where spirits were