o his grizzly hair, which was longer than
the hair of his comrades. "On'y it's coming out another tint o' awrburn
nor what it was ten years ago, and the old woman won't have the same
pride in my pussonal appearance."

At two o'clock the assistant warder known as Jim-the-ladder marched Paul
Ritson to the chief warder's office. There the convict was handcuffed
and the warder armed. Then they set out.

On the steamboat that plied between the Portland Ferry and Weymouth the
convict dress attracted much attention. The day was some sort of chapel
festival, and great numbers of chapel people in holiday costume crowded
the decks and climbed the paddle-boxes; the weather was brilliant; the
sun danced on the waters like countless fairies on a floor of glass; a
brass band played on the bridge.

Again at the Weymouth railway station the people gathered in little
groups, and looked askance at the convict. During the few minutes which
elapsed before the train left the platform, a knot of spectators stood
before the carriage and peered in at the window.

Paul Ritson paid little heed to these attentions, but they were often
unwelcome enough. "Keep clear of him--see the blue cap?" "What an
ill-looking fellow--to be sure, his looks are enough to hang him."

Paul laughed bitterly. His heart felt cold within him at that moment. If
he had worn broadcloth and a smile, how different the popular verdict
might have been. Who then would have said that he was a villain?
Certainly not yonder sleek minister of Christ who was humming a psalm
tune a moment ago, and paused to whisper, "Be sure your sin will find
you out." The black-coated Pharisee was handing a lady into a
first-class carriage.

The train started. Paul threw himself back in his seat, and thought of
all that had occurred since he made this journey before. He was
traveling in the other direction then, and what an agony was that first
experience of convict life! He had never thought of it from that day to
this.

Other and more poignant memories had day after day obliterated the
recollection of that experience. But it came back now as freshly as if
it had all occurred yesterday. He was one of a gang of twenty who were
traveling from Millbank to Dartmoor. The journey to Waterloo in the
prison van had been a terrible ordeal. He had thought in the cells that
it would be nothing to him if people in the streets recognized him. The
shameful punishment of an innocent man was not his, but