about a hundred prisoners, arrested in
different parts of the province at different times, and in spite of our
being described as "accomplices," many of us have never met or heard of
each other.

[Illustration: "TIRED OUT."]

A few days later, before the windows are replaced, and the dull grey
cloud again presses upon us, the desire to see and know each other
suggests an idea. Each prisoner, standing at the window, holds a mirror
which he or she passes outside the bars. Held at an angle these pieces
of glass throw back floating images of pale, phantom-like faces, many of
them unknown or unrecognisable. Those who are to-night leaving the
prison are, for me, not even phantoms, but only voices heard for the
first time this morning, and now so soon to be silenced, by the cord of
Troloff, or in some cell at Schlusselbourg or the Cross.[11] And yet, as
I listen to these voices dying away in the dark distance, I again
experience all the despair and all the hate of the day, and my last
"adieu" is choked in a sob--and when, a few moments later, the heavy
outer door is closed, a great shudder as of death passes over the
prison.

(_To be continued._)

[11] Troloff--the Russian public executioner. Schlusselbourg and the
Cross--names of central prisons where the prisoners, placed in small
cells, are always chained. Deprived of books or tools, not allowed to
see their friends, forbidden to write or receive letters, those subject
to the treatment, after a few months, become mad and die.

_A Slave of the Ring._

BY ALFRED BERLYN.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY JOHN GULICH.

-----

[Illustration: "A TROUBLED EXPRESSION ON HIS FACE."]

The Rev. Thomas Todd, curate of S. Athanasius, Great Wabbleton, sat at
the table in his little parlour with a local newspaper in his hand and a
troubled expression on his face. There was something incongruous in the
appearance of the deep frown that puckered the curate's brows; for his
countenance, in its normal aspect, was chubby and plump and bland, and
his little grey eyes were wont to shine with a benign and even a
humorous twinkle. He was not remarkably young, as curates go; but he was
quite young enough to be a subject of absorbing interest to the lady
members of the S. Athanasius congregation, and to find himself the
frequent recipient of those marks of feminine attention which are the
recognised perquisites of the junior assistant clergy.

Two or