ged its beauty rather briefly.

"Will you tell me why it has 'State Asylum' on the horse block?" she
said.

"That's just what it is," said Lydia--"an asylum, a real asylum to some
of us. It used to be for the insane, Benny. That's why."

On the all-day journey to New York Miss Bennett had counted on hearing
the full psychological story of the last two years. In her visits to the
prison she had found that Lydia wanted to hear of the outside world--not
to talk of herself; but now that she was free Miss Bennett hoped this
might be changed. She had taken a compartment so they could be by
themselves, but the minute the door was shut upon them a funny change
came over Lydia. She grew absent and tense, and at last she sprang up
and opened it.

"It's pleasanter open," she said haughtily, and then she suddenly
laughed. "Oh, Benny, to be able to open a closed door!"

Miss Bennett began to cry softly. All these months she had been trying
to persuade herself that the change in Lydia was due to prison clothes;
but now, seeing her dressed as she used to dress, the change was still
there. She was thinner, finer--shaped, as it were, by a sharper mold.
All her reactions were slower. It took her longer to answer, longer to
smile. This gave her--what Lydia had never had before--a touch of
mystery, as if her real life were going on somewhere else, below the
surface, remote from companionship.

She wiped her eyes, thinking that she must not let Lydia guess she
thought her changed. Their eyes met. Lydia was discovering a curious
fact, which she in her turn thought it better to conceal. It was this:
That the figures of her prison life had a depth and reality that made
all the rest of the world seem like shadows. Even while she questioned
Miss Bennett about her friends she felt as if she were asking about
characters in a book which she had not had time to finish. Would Bobby
be sure to be at the station? Was Eleanor coming to town that night to
see her? Where was Albee?

Miss Bennett did not know where Albee was, and her tone indicated that
she did not greatly care. She did not intend to stir Lydia up against
anyone but she could not help wishing Lydia would punish Albee. He had
not been really loyal, and he was the only one of the intimate circle
who had not been. A man with red blood in his veins, Miss Bennett
thought, would have married Lydia the day before she went to prison or
would at least be waiting, hat in hand, the day she ca