her
room thinking that she was more a murderess at heart than this girl, who
was now nothing but a mother.

When she came out of the hospital she was not put back at the schoolroom
work but was sent to the kitchen. This was an immense tiled room which
gave the impression to those who first entered it of being entirely
empty. Then the eye fell on a row of copper containers--three of them as
tall as she--one for tea, one for coffee, one for hot water, and three
smaller pots, round like witches' caldrons, for the cooking of cereals
and meats and potatoes. The baking was done in an adjacent alcove. There
Lydia was put to work. Gradually the process began to interest her--the
mixing of the dough and the baking of dozens of loaves at a time in a
great oven with rotating shelves in it. The oven, like all ovens, had
its caprices, dependent upon the amount of heat being used by the rest
of the institution. Lydia set herself to master the subject. A certain
strain of practical competence in her had never before had its
expression.

CHAPTER XIV

As Lydia began to emerge from her depression she clung to Evans, who had
first made her see that she could not think anything human alien to
herself. The disciplined little Englishwoman, sincere and without
self-pity, seemed the purveyor of wisdom. She saw her own mistakes
clearly. William--William was the pale young footman, about whom they
talked a good deal--had urged her for a long time to pick up a
ten-dollar bill now and then or a forgotten bit of jewelry. She had
never felt any temptation to do so until Lydia had been so indifferent
about the loss of the bracelet. What was the use of caring so much about
the safety of the jewels if the owner cared so little?

"Oh, that bracelet!" murmured Lydia, remembering how she had last seen
it in O'Bannon's hand in court. For a moment she did not follow what
Evans was saying, and came back in the midst of a sentence.

"----and made me see that because you were wrong that did not make me
right. Then I got ready to confess. He made me see that the real harm
was done and over when I took a thing that wasn't mine, and that the
only way to get back was to obey the law and go to prison and get
through with it as quick as I could. I owe a lot to him, Lydia--not that
he preached at me, but his eyes looked right into me."

"Of whom are you speaking?" Lydia asked sharply.

"Of Mr. O'Bannon," answered Evans, and a reverent tone came into