o--sorry for herself and, she
thought, for him.

"Frank," she declared, dramatically, at the last moment, "I never saw
such a man as you. I don't believe you have any heart. You're not worthy
of a good wife. You're worthy of just such a woman as you're getting.
The idea!" Suddenly tears came to her eyes, and she flounced scornfully
and yet sorrowfully out.

Cowperwood stood there. At least there would be no more useless kissing
between them, he congratulated himself. It was hard in a way, but purely
from an emotional point of view. He was not doing her any essential
injustice, he reasoned--not an economic one--which was the important
thing. She was angry to-day, but she would get over it, and in time
might come to see his point of view. Who could tell? At any rate he had
made it plain to her what he intended to do and that was something as he
saw it. He reminded one of nothing so much, as he stood there, as of
a young chicken picking its way out of the shell of an old estate.
Although he was in a cell of a penitentiary, with nearly four years more
to serve, yet obviously he felt, within himself, that the whole world
was still before him. He could go west if he could not reestablish
himself in Philadelphia; but he must stay here long enough to win the
approval of those who had known him formerly--to obtain, as it were, a
letter of credit which he could carry to other parts.

"Hard words break no bones," he said to himself, as his wife went out.
"A man's never done till he's done. I'll show some of these people yet."
Of Bonhag, who came to close the cell door, he asked whether it was
going to rain, it looked so dark in the hall.

"It's sure to before night," replied Bonhag, who was always wondering
over Cowperwood's tangled affairs as he heard them retailed here and
there.

Chapter LVII

The time that Cowperwood spent in the Eastern Penitentiary of
Pennsylvania was exactly thirteen months from the day of his entry
to his discharge. The influences which brought about this result were
partly of his willing, and partly not. For one thing, some six months
after his incarceration, Edward Malia Butler died, expired sitting in
his chair in his private office at his home. The conduct of Aileen had
been a great strain on him. From the time Cowperwood had been sentenced,
and more particularly after the time he had cried on Aileen's shoulder
in prison, she had turned on her father in an almost brutal way. Her
attit