No doubt, you and Miss Westcote would prefer to break the good news to him in private?
Yes, yes; I will have him sent up to the Consulting Room.

The Doctor has finished his morning rounds, and you will be quite alone there." He picked up his cap and escorted them out and across the court to the gate of the main prison.

Beyond this Dorothea found herself in a vast snowy yard, along two sides of which ran covered ways or piazzas open to the air, but faced with iron bars, and behind these bars flitted the forms of the prisoners at exercise, stamping the flagged pavement to keep their starved blood in circulation.

At a sight of the Commandant with his two visitors--so small a spectacle had power to divert them-- all this movement, this stamping, was hushed suddenly.

Voices broke into chatter; faces appeared between the bars and stared.
"Yes," said the Commandant, reading Dorothea's thought, "a large family to be responsible for! How many would you guess, now ?" "A thousand, at least," she murmured.
"Six thousand! Each of those blocks yonder will accommodate fifteen hundred men.