he had beaten them at their own
game.

Their attempt to make a "dope" out of him had ignominiously failed. He
had detected the morphine they had cleverly mixed with his water; and,
after his drowsiness and weird dreams had convinced him of the plot, had
turned the trick on it by secretly emptying this water out and by
drinking only while in the shop, where he could draw water from the
faucet. The cell guards' intelligence had been too limited to make them
inquire of the brush shop guards about his habits. Also, Gabriel, had
feigned stupefaction while in the cell. Thus he had simulated the
effects of the drug, and had really thrown his tormentors off the track.
For months and months they were convinced that they were weakening his
will and destroying his mentality, while as a matter of fact his
reasoning powers and determination never had been more keen.

By bathing as often as possible, by taking regular and carefully planned
calisthenics, by reading the best books in the prison library, by
attention to every rule of health within his means, and by allowing
himself no vices, not even his pipe, Gabriel now was emerging from the
Bastile of Capitalism in a condition of mind and body so little impaired
that he knew a few weeks would entirely restore him. The good conduct
allowance, or "copper," which they had been forced to allow him for
exemplary conduct, had cut ten months off his sentence. And now in
mid-August of 1925, there he stood, a free man again, with purpose still
unshaken and with a woman by his side who shared his high ambition and
asked no better lot than to work with him toward the one great
aim--Socialism!

Now, as these two walked side by side along the sunbaked street of the
sweltering Southern town, Gabriel was saying:

"So I haven't changed as much as you expected? I'm glad of that, Kate.
Only superficial changes, at most. Just give me a little time to pull
together and get my legs under me again, and--forward march! Charge the
forts! Eh, Catherine?"

She nodded, smiling. Smiles were rare with her, now. She had grown
sober and serious, in these years of work and battle and stern endeavor.
The Catherine Flint of the old times had vanished--the Catherine of
country club days, and golf and tennis, and the opera--the Catherine of
Newport, of the horse show, of Paris, of "society." In her place now
lived another and a nobler woman, a woman known and loved the length and
breadth of the land, a woman exal