molo stop pulled all the
way out, was a young man whose entire future would be blasted--and all
that sort of thing. It hadn't the slightest effect upon the group of
stolid hill farmers and laborers in the box who sat and yawned through
it, and I fancy it wasn't intended to have any.

Good old Judge Haskins's charge to the jury was all that a fair and
upright judge could make it. He was no party to the agreement between
the attorneys to keep Agatha Geddis out of it, or even to any knowledge
of it, as he proved by pointing out to the jury the lack of detail in
Fitch's and Withers's testimony. Also, he cautioned the twelve not to
make too much of the attempted escape. He said--what most judges
wouldn't have said--that the attempt was entirely extraneous to the
charge upon which I had been arraigned; that it was not to be taken as
a presumption of guilt; that it proved nothing either way. He added
that an innocent man badly involved might be as easily terrified into
taking flight as a guilty one. If the jury, upon due deliberation,
should be convinced that I had misappropriated the bank's funds, the
verdict should be "Guilty"; but not otherwise.

It was merely in conformity with time-honored custom that the jurymen
rose and left the box and filed out of the court-room, I am sure, for
they were back again in almost no time. Though I had every reason to
expect it, the low-voiced verdict of "Guilty as charged" struck me like
the blow of a fist.

"Brace up and be a man!" Whitredge leaned over to whisper in my ear;
and then the good old judge, with his voice shaking a little,
pronounced my sentence. Five years was the minimum for the offense
with which I stood charged. But a law recently passed gave the judges
a new power. Within the nominal period of five years my sentence was
made indeterminate. The law was vindicated and I became a convict.

IV

Scars

I was twenty-five years old, almost to a day, when Judge Haskins
pronounced the words which were to make me for the next five years or
less--the period to be determined upon my good behavior--an inmate of the
State penitentiary. Lacking the needful good behavior, five long years
would be taken out of the best part of life for me, and what was worse (I
realized this even in the tumultuous storm of first-moment impressions
and emotions), my entire point of view was certain to be hopelessly
twisted and distorted for all the years that I might live beyond m