ersation between Beard and the girl, would have discerned the
romance in the lives of the couple. Had they revealed it in its most
intimate detail, they could not have conveyed a better understanding of
it than through the words uttered in this murky prison corridor. It was
plain to Britz that Beard and Ward had been suitors for the girl's hand;
that Ward's suit was successful through the favor which he found in the
eyes of the girl's father. But now, when the man with whom she really
was in love was in desperate straits, that love could no longer be
diverted from its true channel, and, like an irresistible current that
sweeps everything before it, it had carried her to the side of her
endangered lover.

Materialists may find it difficult to distinguish between love and
passion--may deny to their hearts' content the existence of any line of
demarcation between them. But the true lover has no doubt on the
subject. Love distinguishes itself from passion, through sacrifice.
Passion is invariably selfish. Love never is.

Britz, recognizing instinctively the genuineness of the woman's love,
passed over its ennobling aspect, to find therein a potent influence for
the solution of the crime with which he was engaged. The girl had
unconsciously revealed herself to him as a means to an end--that end
being the discovery and punishment of the murderer of Herbert Whitmore.

Had Beard been an experienced criminal, he would have known that no
walls have more ears, nor more delicately attuned ears, than prison
walls. And that knowledge would have inspired a suspicion of the very
bars against which he pressed his fevered face. But being without
previous jail experience, he said in a voice as distinctly audible to
Britz as if he had been talking directly to the detective,--

"Then you don't believe for a single instant the terrible accusation
they have lodged against me?"

"No one who knows you can possibly believe it," she answered in a tone
of conviction.

"Dearest," he said, adopting a confidential air, "I could leave this
prison to-morrow were I so inclined. They haven't the least particle of
evidence against me--they cannot have. Were I to force the issue they
could not make out a case sufficient to justify my being held for the
grand jury. I am staying here because I want to, because it is best that
they should direct their efforts toward trying to prove me the
murderer."

Britz, in the darkness of his cell, indulged in an