p it," she gasped; "I'm so happy."

My enemies said of me, when I got my appointment, that I was too
excitable a man to be governor of a prison. Perhaps they were not
altogether wrong. Anyhow, the quick-witted Doctor saw some change in me,
which I was not aware of myself. He took my arm and led me out of the
cell. "Leave her to me," he whispered. "The fine edge of my nerves was
worn off long ago in the hospital."

When we met again, I asked what had passed between the Prisoner and
himself.

"I gave her time to recover," he told me; "and, except that she looked a
little paler than usual, there was no trace left of the frenzy that you
remember. 'I ought to apologize for troubling you,' she said; 'but it is
perhaps natural that I should think, now and then, of what is to happen
to me to-morrow morning. As a medical man, you will be able to enlighten
me. Is death by hanging a painful death?' She had put it so politely
that I felt bound to answer her. 'If the neck happens to be broken,' I
said, 'hanging is a sudden death; fright and pain (if there is any pain)
are both over in an instant. As to the other form of death which is also
possible (I mean death by suffocation), I must own as an honest man that
I know no more about it than you do.' After considering a little, she
made a sensible remark, and followed it by an embarrassing request. 'A
great deal,' she said, 'must depend on the executioner. I am not afraid
of death, Doctor. Why should I be? My anxiety about my little girl is
set at rest; I have nothing left to live for. But I don't like pain.
Would you mind telling the executioner to be careful? Or would it be
better if I spoke to him myself?' I said I thought it would come with
a better grace from herself. She understood me directly; and we dropped
the subject. Are you surprised at her coolness, after your experience of
her?"

I confessed that I was surprised.

"Think a little," the Doctor said. "The one sensitive place in that
woman's nature is the place occupied by her self-esteem."

I objected to this that she had shown fondness for her child.

My friend disposed of the objection with his customary readiness.

"The maternal instinct," he said. "A cat is fond of her kittens; a cow
is fond of her calf. No, sir, the one cause of that outbreak of passion
which so shocked you--a genuine outbreak, beyond all doubt--is to be
found in the vanity of a fine feminine creature, overpowered by a horror
of looking hideo