to his prison wing like an inside fire-escape. On the bench in the
middle of the guard-room sat Abbie--a little, helpless thing she
seemed to him--facing the entrance, as if she feared to remove her
eyes from the door that led to freedom.

Abbie was greatly changed. She was dressed in black. If Isaac had been
a free man, this fact would have startled him. As it was, he was so
spent with suffering that his dulled mind could not understand it.
At first Abbie did not recognize her hearty lover. His huge frame was
gaunt and wasted. His ruddy face was white, and his cheeks hung
in folds like moulded putty. His country clothes dropped about him
aimlessly. From crown to foot he had been devastated by unmerited
disgrace. Grief may glorify; but the other ravages.

This meeting between the lovers was singularly undramatic. Each shrank
a little from the other. They shook hands quietly. His was burning;
her's like a swamp in October dew. He sat down beside her on the bench
awkwardly, while the deputy looked at them with careless curiosity. He
was used to nothing but tragedy and crime, and to his experienced mind
the two had become long ago confused.

"Mother?" asked Isaac, nervously moving his feet. "Didn't she get my
letter?"

The girl nodded gravely, tried to meet his eyes, and then looked away.
Tears fell unresisted down her cheeks. She made no attempt to wipe
them off. It was as if she were too well acquainted with them to check
their flow.

Then the truth began to filter through Isaac's bewebbed intellect. He
spread his knees apart, rested his arms upon them, and bent his head
to his hands. His great figure shook.

"Oh, my God!" he sobbed. "My God! My God!"

"Oh, don't, Isaac, don't!" Abbie put her hand upon his head as if he
had been her boy. "Your mother was as happy as could be. She was happy
to die. We buried her yesterday!"

How could she tell him that his mother had died of grief--too sorely
smitten to bear it--for his sake?

But Isaac's head rose and fell--rose and fell rhythmically between his
hands. His breath came in low groans, like that of an animal smitten
dead by a criminally heavy load.

"She sent her love before she passed away. She wanted you to come back
to the farm as soon as you could. She believed in you, Ikey, even if
you were in prison. She said Paul was in prison, and that it was a
terrible mistake. She knew your father's son would not depart from his
God!"

As Abbie uttered this simple c