the merry, cheery grin that had won him favor everywhere from
wildest Bohemia to primest Presbyterian tea parties, Lloyd added: "That's a
hell of a way to treat a murderer!"

The Sunday morning service was just ending when Kittredge reached the
prison, and he got his first impressions of the place as he listened to
resounding Gregorian tones chanted, or rather shouted, by tiers on tiers of
prisoners, each joining in the unison with full lung power through cell
doors chained ajar. The making of this rough music was one of the pleasures
of the week, and at once the newcomer's heart was gripped by the
indescribable sadness of it.

[Illustration: "And when he could think no longer, he listened to the
pickpocket."]

Having gone through the formalities of arrival and been instructed as to
various detail of prison routine, Lloyd settled down as comfortably as
might be in his cell to pass the afternoon over "The Last of the Mohicans."
He chose this because the librarian assured him that no books were as
popular among French convicts as the translated works of Fenimore Cooper.
"Good old Stars and Stripes!" murmured Kittredge, but he stared at the same
page for a long time before he began to read. And once he brushed a quick
hand across his eyes.

Scarcely had Lloyd finished a single chapter when one of the guards
appeared with as much of surprise on his stolid countenance as an
overworked under jailer can show; for an unprecedented thing had
happened--a prisoner _au secret_ was to receive a visitor, a young woman,
at that, and, _sapristi_, a good-looking one, who came with a special order
from the director of the prison. Moreover, he was to see her in the private
parlor, with not even the customary barrier of iron bars to separate them.
They were to be left together for half an hour, the guard standing at the
open door with instructions not to interfere except for serious reasons. In
the memory of the oldest inhabitant such a thing had not been known!

Kittredge, however, was not surprised, first, because nothing could
surprise him, and, also, because he had no idea what an extraordinary
exception had been made in his favor. So he walked before the guard
indifferently enough toward the door indicated, but when he crossed the
threshold he started back with a cry of amazement.

"Alice!" he gasped, and his face lighted with transfiguring joy. It was a
bare room with bare floors and bare yellow painted walls, the only
furnish