window, set high within a wall of stone. The rigid
lines of black that crossed it were bars--prison bars. It was still
true, then: She was in a cell of the Tombs.

The girl, crouching miserably on the narrow bed, maintained her fixed
watching of the window--that window which was a symbol of her utter
despair. Again, agony wrenched within her. She did not weep: long ago
she had exhausted the relief of tears. She did not pace to and fro in
the comfort of physical movement with which the caged beast finds a
mocking imitation of liberty: long ago, her physical vigors had been
drained under stress of anguish. Now, she was well-nigh incapable of any
bodily activity. There came not even so much as the feeblest moan from
her lips. The torment was far too racking for such futile fashion of
lamentation. She merely sat there in a posture of collapse. To all
outward seeming, nerveless, emotionless, an abject creature. Even
the eyes, which held so fixedly their gaze on the window, were quite
expressionless. Over them lay a film, like that which veils the eyes of
some dead thing. Only an occasional languid motion of the lids revealed
the life that remained.

So still the body. Within the soul, fury raged uncontrolled. For all the
desolate calm of outer seeming, the tragedy of her fate was being acted
with frightful vividness there in memory. In that dreadful remembrance,
her spirit was rent asunder anew by realization of that which had become
her portion.... It was then, as once again the horrible injustice of her
fate racked consciousness with its tortures, that the seeds of revolt
were implanted in her heart. The thought of revenge gave to her the
first meager gleam of comfort that had lightened her moods through many
miserable days and nights. Those seeds of revolt were to be nourished
well, were to grow into their flower--a poison flower, developed through
the three years of convict life to which the judge had sentenced her.

The girl was appalled by the mercilessness of a destiny that had so
outraged right. She was wholly innocent of having done any wrong. She
had struggled through years of privation to keep herself clean and
wholesome, worthy of those gentlefolk from whom she drew her blood.
And earnest effort had ended at last under an overwhelming
accusation--false, yet none the less fatal to her. This accusation,
after soul-wearying delays, had culminated to-day in conviction. The
sentence of the court had been imposed upo