dict fell
from the lips of the "bought and paid for" judge, a sturdily built and
square jawed man stood on the steps of the Atlanta Penitentiary and, for
the first time in all these weary months and years, faced the sun.

Pale with the prison-pallor that never fails to set its seal on the
victims of a diseased society, which that society retaliates upon by
shutting away from God's own light and air, this man stood there on the
steps, a moment, then advanced to meet a woman who was coming toward him
in the August glare. As he removed his cheap, convict-made cap, one saw
his finely shaped head, close cropped with the infamous prison badge of
servitude. Despite the shoddy miserable prison-suit that the prostituted
government had given him--a suit that would have made Apollo grotesque
and would have marked any man as an ex-convict, thus heavily
handicapping him from the start--Gabriel Armstrong's poise and strength
still made themselves manifest.

And the smile as they two, the woman and he, came together and their
hands clasped, lighted his pale features with a ray brighter than that
of the blistering Southern sunshine flooding down upon them both.

"I knew you'd come, Catherine," said he, simply, his voice still the
same deep, vibrant, earnest voice which, all that time ago, had thrilled
and inspired her at the hour of her great conversion. Still were his
eyes clear, level and commanding; and through his splendid body, despite
all his jailers had been able to do, coursed an abundant life and strong
vitality.

Gabriel had served his time with consummate skill, courage and
intelligence. Like all wise men, he had recognized _force majeure_, and
had submitted. He had made practically no infractions of the prison
rules, during his whole "bit." He had been quiet, obedient and
industrious. His work, in the brush factory, had always been well done;
and though he had consistently refused to bear tales, to spy, to inform
or be a stool-pigeon--the quickest means of winning favor in any
prison--yet he had given no opportunity for savagery and violence to be
applied to him. Not even Flint's eager wish to have his jailers force
him into rebellion had succeeded. Realizing to the full the sort of
tactics that would be used to break, and if possible to kill him,
Gabriel had met them all with calm self-reliance and with a generalship
that showed his brain and nerves were still unshaken. On their own
ground he had met these brutes, and