"Dress yourself in my clothes," said she, "and you can easily pass
the jailer."
This Jerome at first declined doing. He did not wish to place a
confiding girl in a position where, in all probability, she would
have to suffer; but being assured by the young girl that her life
would not be in danger, he resolved to make the attempt. Clotelle
being very tall, it was not probable that the jailer would
discover any difference in them.
At this moment, she took from her pocket a bunch of keys and
unfastened the padlock, and freed him from the floor.
"Come, girl, it is time for you to go," said the jailer, as Jerome
was holding the almost fainting girl by the hand.
Being already attired in Clotelle's clothes, the disguised man
embraced the weeping girl, put his handkerchief to his face, and
passed out of the jail, without the keeper's knowing that his
prisoner was escaping in a disguise and under cover of the night.
CHAPTER XX
THE HERO OF MANY ADVENTURES.
JEROME had scarcely passed the prison-gates, ere he reproached
himself for having taken such a step. There seemed to him no hope
of escape out of the State, and what was a few hours or days at
most, of life to him, when, by obtaining it, another had been
sacrificed. He was on the eve of returning, when he thought of the
last words uttered by Clotelle. "Be brave and determined, and you
will still be free." The words sounded like a charm in his ears and
he went boldly forward.
Clotelle had provided a suit of men's clothes and had placed them
where her lover could get them, if he should succeed in getting
out.
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