ne rousing from a
trance, I awoke to find myself shaven and shorn, dressed in a coarse
convict uniform, in a rough cell of white-washed brick. The small window
had heavy double bars set with thick fluted glass, which, while
admitting light, foiled any attempt of the eye to discern objects
without. In the corner there was a rusty iron shelf. A board let into
the brickwork served for bed, bench and table. A zinc jug and basin for
water, with a wooden plate, spoon and salt dish (no knife or fork for
twenty years!) completed the furnishings.

As I was looking around in a helpless way a key suddenly rattled in the
lock and, the door opening, a uniformed warder stepped in and, giving me
a searching look, said in a rough voice: "Come on; you'll do for chapel;
you have put on the balmy long enough." His kindly face belied his rough
tones, and I followed him out of the door and soon found myself in the
prison chapel. None was present, and I was ordered to sit on the front
bench at the far end. The benches were simply common flat boards ranged
in rows. Soon the prisoners came in singly, marching about two yards
apart, and sat on the benches with that interval between them--that is,
in the division of the chapel where I sat, it being separated from the
rest by a high partition. Soon a white-robed, surpliced clergyman came
in, and the service began; but I had no eye or ear, nor any
comprehension save in a dim manner, as to what was going on. My brain
was trying to connect the past and the present, feeling that something
terrible had befallen me, but what it was I could not understand. When
the services were over I returned under the escort of the warder, who,
when I arrived at my cell, ordered me to go in and close the door, which
I did, banging it behind me. It had a spring lock, and when I heard the
snap of the catch and looked at the narrow, barred window, with its
thick, fluted glass admitting only a dim light, I remembered everything.
Like a flash it all came to me, and I realized the full horror of my
position. Sitting down on the little board fastened to the wall, serving
as bed, seat and table, I buried my face in my hands and began to
ponder. Regrets came in floods, with remorse and despair, hand in hand,
when, realizing that it was madness to think, I sprang up, saying to
myself the hour and minute had come for me to decide--either for
madness and a convict's dishonored grave, or to keep the promise I had
made to my frien