o the prison. Even to think of those places gave
her nightmare. Sheila's description of her night in a cell had made her
shiver with horror. But there was a spirit in Nedda that went through
with things; and she started early the next day, refusing Kirsteen's
proffered company.

The look of that battlemented building, whose walls were pierced with
emblems of the Christian faith, turned her heartsick, and she stood for
several minutes outside the dark-green door before she could summon
courage to ring the bell.

A stout man in blue, with a fringe of gray hair under his peaked cap, and
some keys dangling from a belt, opened, and said:

"Yes, miss?"

Being called 'miss' gave her a little spirit, and she produced the card
she had been warming in her hand.

"I have come to see a man called Robert Tryst, waiting for trial at the
assizes."

The stout man looked at the card back and front, as is the way of those
in doubt, closed the door behind her, and said:

"Just a minute, miss."

The shutting of the door behind her sent a little shiver down Nedda's
spine; but the temperature of her soul was rising, and she looked round.
Beyond the heavy arch, beneath which she stood, was a courtyard where she
could see two men, also in blue, with peaked caps. Then, to her left,
she became conscious of a shaven-headed noiseless being in drab-gray
clothes, on hands and knees, scrubbing the end of a corridor. Her tremor
at the stealthy ugliness of this crouching figure yielded at once to a
spasm of pity. The man gave her a look, furtive, yet so charged with
intense penetrating curiosity that it seemed to let her suddenly into
innumerable secrets. She felt as if the whole life of people shut away
in silence and solitude were disclosed to her in the swift, unutterably
alive look of this noiseless kneeling creature, riving out of her
something to feed his soul and body on. That look seemed to lick its
lips. It made her angry, made her miserable, with a feeling of pity she
could hardly bear. Tears, too startled to flow, darkened her eyes. Poor
man! How he must hate her, who was free, and all fresh from the open
world and the sun, and people to love and talk to! The 'poor man'
scrubbed on steadily, his ears standing out from his shaven head; then,
dragging his knee-mat skew-ways, he took the chance to look at her again.
Perhaps because his dress and cap and stubble of hair and even the color
of his face were so drab-gray, tho