rsing. You can't
understand--you are not one of us. You are as much out of place here,
as one of the angels would be, held over the flames of torment till the
wings singed. From the first time we saw you in the chapel, and more
and more ever since, we found out you did not belong here. I have been
so wicked--so wicked--!"

She paused, panting, then hurried on.

"When the chaplain tried to talk to me, and gave me a book to read, I
dashed it back in his face, and insulted him. One Saturday they sent me
to sweep out and dust the chapel, and when I finished, I laid down on
one of the benches to rest. You went in to practise, not knowing I was
there; and began to sing. As I listened, something seemed to stir and
wake up in my heart, and somehow the music shook me out of myself.
There was one hymn, so solemn, so thrilling, and the end of every verse
was, 'Oh, Lamb of God! I come!'--and you sang it with a great cry, as
if you were running to meet some one. I had not wept--for oh! I don't
know how long--not since--. Then you played on the organ some
variations on a tune--'The Sweet By-and-by'--and the tears started, and
I seemed but a leaf in a wild storm. That was the song my little boy
used to sing! There was a Sunday-school in the basement of a church
next to our house, and he would stand at the window, and listen till he
caught the tune, and learned the words. Oh, that hymn! Every note stung
me like a whip lash when I heard it again. My child's face as I saw him
the last time I put him to bed; when he opened his drowsy eyes, and
raised up to kiss me good-night, came back to me, and seemed to sing,
'In the sweet by-and-by, we shall meet on that beautiful shore.'
No--never--never! Oh, my boy! My beautiful angel Max--there is no room
for me, on that heavenly shore! Oh! my darling--there is NO 'Sweet
by-and-by' FOR MOTHER NOW."

She had started up, with arms clasped around her knees, and her
convulsed face lifted toward the low ceiling of the cell, writhed, as
she drew her breath in hissing gasps.

"You loved your little boy?"

"You are not a mother, or you wouldn't ask me that If ever you had felt
your baby's sweet warm lips on yours, you would know that it is
mother-love that makes tigers of women. Because I idolized my little
one, I could not bear the cruel wrong of having him torn from me,
taught to despise me; and so I loved him best when I slew him, and I
was so mad, with the delirium of pain and rage and despair, t