the courthouse, where stood another brick building of
public interest; in short, the county jail.
It was the duty of the sheriff to care for the tenants of his jail, and
he made his own home in a part of the brick building which served in
that capacity--a small building with iron grates on the lower windows,
arranged at about the height of a man's eyes as he would stand within on
the cement floor of a cell, so that he might look out just above the
greensward, his face visible to any who passed by. Many a boy had thus
gazed with horror on the unshaven face of some ruffian who begged him
for tobacco, or some tramp who had trifled too long with the patience of
the community, usually so generous with its alms. Many a school child
could show you the very place where the woman who killed her children
was confined before they took her away--could point out the very window
where she stood looking and weeping and wringing her hands--"Just like
this"--as any child would tell you.
And some day perhaps children would point out this very window where now
stood looking out, motionless--"Not saying a word to nobody"--the "man
who killed the city marshal." Don Lane was standing at his grated window
and looking out when Anne Oglesby crossed the grass plot and came up the
brick sidewalk, fenced in by chains supported on little iron posts,
which led to the jail's iron-bound door.
His heart gave a great leap. He saw her. She was coming to him--the one
faithful, his beloved! Not even Miss Julia--not even his mother--had
come, but here was Anne!
But at the next instant he stepped back from the window, hoping that she
would not gain admission. Shame, deep and unspeakable, additional shame,
twofold shame, compassed him as soon as he reflected. The bitterest of
all was the fact that he must yield her up forever. He must tell her
why. And now she had come--to see him in a cell! It was here that he
must break his heart, and hers.
Sheriff Cowles opened the door when Anne Oglesby rang the bell. He stood
for a moment looking out into the twilight.
"Who is it?" he asked. Then he recognized the girl whom he had brought
down town from the railway station in his car that morning. Anne Oglesby
was not a person easily to be forgotten.
"You know who I am, Mr. Cowles," said she--"I am Miss Oglesby, Judge
Henderson's ward. I'm--I am respectable."
"Yes," said Cowles, "I know that, but why are you here?"
"Because I'd not be respectable if I
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