n
house!" shouted the crowd.

Casey closed the door. "We'll have to get the wagon," he said.

They sat waiting until the patrol wagon came. Then Hilda,
half-carried by Casey, crossed the sidewalk through a double line of
blue coats who fought back the frantically curious, pushed on by those
behind. In the wagon she revived and by the time they reached the
station house, seemed calm. Another great crowd was pressing in; she
heard cries of "There's the girl that killed him!" She drew herself up
haughtily, looked round with defiance, with indignation.

Her father and Otto rushed forward as soon as she entered the doors.
She broke down again. "Take me home! Take me home!" she sobbed.
"I've not done anything." The men forgot that they had promised each
the other to be calm, and cursed and cried alternately. The matron
came, spoke to her gently.

"You'll have to go now, child," she said.

Hilda kissed her father, then she and Otto clasped each the other
closely. "It'll turn out all right, dear," he said. "We're having a
streak of bad luck. But our good luck'll be all the better when it
comes."

Strength and hope seemed to pass from him into her. She walked away
firmly and the last glimpse they had of her sad sweet young face was a
glimpse of a brave little smile trying to break through its gray gloom.
But alone in her cell, seated upon the board that was her bed, her
disgrace and loneliness and danger took possession of her. She was a
child of the people, brought up to courage and self-reliance. She
could be brave and calm before false accusers, before staring crowds.
But here, with a dim gas-jet revealing the horror of grated bars and
iron ceiling, walls and floor--

She sat there, hour after hour, sleepless, tearless, her brain burning,
the cries of drunken prisoners in adjoining cells sounding in her ears
like the shrieks of the damned. Seconds seemed moments, moments
hours. "I'm dreaming," she said aloud at last. She started up and
hurled herself against the bars, beating them with her hands. "I must
wake or I'll die. Oh, the disgrace! Oh! the shame!"

And she flung herself into a corner of the bench, to dread the time
when the darkness and the loneliness would cease to hide her.

XII

EXIT MR. FEUERSTEIN

The matron brought her up into the front room of the station house at
eight in the morning. Casey looked at her haggard face with an
expression of satisfaction. "Her nerve's