requested. Well, what else was there for him to do?

He did not look up often, as he plodded over the fields: when he did, it
hurt him somehow, this terrible wastefulness, this boundless unused air,
and stretch of room. It even pained hiss weakened eyes: so long the
oblong slip of clay running from the cell to the wall had been his
share, and the yellow patch of sky and brick chimney-top beyond. For so
many thousands, too, no more. But they were thieves, foul, like him.
Pure men this was for. Stephen looked like an old man now, in spite of
Ben's party-colored rigging: stooped and lean, his step slouched: his
head almost bald under the old fur cap. Something in the sharpened face,
too, looked as if more than eyesight had been palsied in these years of
utter solitude: the brain was dulled with sluggishly gnawing over and
over the few animal ideas they leave for prisoners' souls,--or, as
probably, thoroughly imbruted by them. Soule thought the latter.

When the convict had finished his dull walk, he sat down on the wooden
staircase that led to his brother's rooms for half an hour, slowly
rubbing his legs, conscious of nothing but some flesh-pain,
apparently,--and when he did enter the chamber, bowed as indifferently
to Soule and his wife as though they had parted carelessly yesterday.
His brother glanced at the woman: one look would certainly be enough for
her. Poor Stephen's power? If it ever had been, its essence was long
since exhaled: there was nothing in his whole nature now but the stalest
dregs, surely? Perhaps she thought differently: she looked at the man
keenly, and then gave a quick, warning glance to her husband, as she sat
down to her sewing. Soule did not heed it as he usually did: he was
choked and sick to see what a wreck his brother really was. God help us!
to think of the time when Stephen and he were boys together, and this
was the end of it!

"Come to the fire, old fellow!" he said, huskily. "You're blue with
cold. We used to have snows like this at home, eh?"

The man passed the lady with the quaint, shy bow that used to be
habitual with him towards women, (he still used it to the jailer's
wife,) and held his hands over the blaze. His brother followed him: his
wife had never seen him so nervous or excited: he stood close to the
convict, smoothing his coat on the shoulder, taking off his cap.

"Why, why! this cloth's too thin, even for summer; I--Oh, Stephen, these
are hard times,--hard! But I mean