gain the confidence
of their unhappy victims. Here, for instance, were the man and woman
who had lured servant girls into the depths of a forest and there
murdered them for the sake of their boxes. Even the silliest girl, one
would have supposed, must have fled in terror from the ape-like cunning
of those wicked faces. Here was the housekeeper who had made away with
her aged mistress. Surely any one with the smallest power of observation
would have refused to sit in the evening, to sleep at night, in company
with so horrible a countenance. Here was the man who killed his paramour
with a knife. How came he to have a paramour? The desire to kill lurked
in his bony cheeks, his small, intent eyes, his narrow slit of a mouth,
but no desire to love. God seemed to have set his warning to humanity
upon each of these creatures of the Devil. Yet they had deceived mankind
to mankind's undoing. They had won confidence, respect, even love.

The man was confused by this knowledge, as he moved among them in the
dimness and the silence, brushing the sleeve of one, the skirt of
another, looking into the curiously expressive eyes of all. But
presently his wondering recognition of the world's fatuous and frantic
gullibility ceased. For at the end of an alley of murderers he stood
before a woman. She was young, pretty and distinguished in appearance.
Her features were small and delicate. Her brow was noble. Her painted
mouth was tender and saintly; and, though her eyes were sightless,
truth and nobility surely gazed out of them. For a moment the man was
seized by a conviction that a mistake had been made by the proprietors
of the establishment, and that some being, famous for charitable deeds,
or intellect, or heroic accomplishment had been put in penance among
these tragic effigies. He glanced at her number, consulted his
catalogue, and found that this woman was named Catherine Sirrett, and
that she had been convicted of the murder of her husband by poison some
few years before. Then he looked at her again and, before this criminal,
he felt that she might, nay, must, have deceived any man, the most acute
and enlightened observer. No one could have looked into that face and
seen blackness in the heart of that woman. Everyone must have trusted
her. Many must have loved her. Her appearance inspired more than
confidence--reverence; there was something angelic in its purity. There
was something religious in its quiet gravity. His heart grew he