sobbing cry of self-justification was received with jibes
and winks. Was not such the formula of every prisoner? They pressed
her for her story. Looking at these ignoble spirits, the girl could
not bear to acquaint them with her pure and holy romance.

As she turned away, a new shock met her gaze.

Faugh! What was this physical weakness, this nausea-like repulsion,
but the bodily reaction from the tense spiritual agony she had
suffered?

Courage! She must look again. That wild woman--hair down, breath
gasping, arms weaving threateningly--was coming at her like a
murderess. Momentarily Henriette expected the long arms to seize her,
the steel-like hands and wrists to choke her.

She looked yet a third time. The crazy "murderess" had veered her
course, but what was that other object nearby? A Niobe weeping for her
own and the world's sorrows! Or this one over here--a shrieking maniac
calling on all Hell's legions for vengeance on fancied enemies!
Beyond, gibbering victims of paresis, white-haired idiots, wasted
sufferers from senile dementia.

Not a friendly face, not a kind look nor an understanding eye! Crime,
passion, foulness, insanity. The sheer horror of her situation
mercifully blotted out consciousness. She sank, a crumpled heap to the
floor.

"The girl is sick," said Sister Genevieve, who had entered at this
moment and was presently bending over her. "Here, two of you lift her
and carry her into the hospital--we shall have the good Doctor from La
Force attend her!" Two of the sturdier prisoners bore her away....

Beautiful, pitiful Henriette!

The horrors of the madwomen thou facest in Salpetriere; the obscene
shouts and curses of the fallen; the fury of the female criminal; the
misery of the poor distracted half-wits, where mad and sane are given
the same cell:--these shall be but confused phantasmagoria projected
on thy sick brain during this prison time before the awful Storm
breaks--the lightning strikes--the thunder crashes, and the sharp
female called La Guillotine holds thee in its embrace.

From the tumbril shalt thou find and kiss the blind girl, and Maurice
de Vaudrey shall accompany thee into the Valley of the Shadow!

CHAPTER XV

LIGHT RAYS IN THE DARKNESS

Henriette was nursed through a severe mental and bodily illness by
Sister Genevieve directed by the visiting prison Doctor, none other
than him who had examined the eyes of Louise before Notre Dame.

During this period it wa