r her story?" asked Dawes, with a
pitiful change of manner. "They told me that she was to be asked. Surely
they will ask her."

"I am not, perhaps, at liberty," said Meekin, placidly unconscious of
the agony of despair and rage that made the voice of the strong man
before him quiver, "to state the intentions of the authorities, but I
can tell you that Miss Vickers will not be asked anything about you. You
are to go back to Port Arthur on the 24th, and to remain there."

A groan burst from Rufus Dawes; a groan so full of torture that even the
comfortable Meekin was thrilled by it.

"It is the Law, you know, my good man. I can't help it," he said. "You
shouldn't break the Law, you know."

"Curse the Law!" cries Dawes. "It's a Bloody Law; it's--there, I beg
your pardon," and he fell to cracking his stones again, with a laugh
that was more terrible in its bitter hopelessness of winning attention
or sympathy, than any outburst of passion could have been.

"Come," says Meekin, feeling uneasily constrained to bring forth some of
his London-learnt platitudes. "You can't complain. You have broken the
Law, and you must suffer. Civilized Society says you sha'n't do certain
things, and if you do them you must suffer the penalty Civilized
Society imposes. You are not wanting in intelligence, Dawes, more's the
pity--and you can't deny the justice of that."

Rufus Dawes, as if disdaining to answer in words, cast his eyes round
the yard with a glance that seemed to ask grimly if Civilized Society
was progressing quite in accordance with justice, when its civilization
created such places as that stone-walled, carbine-guarded prison-shed,
and filled it with such creatures as those forty human beasts, doomed to
spend the best years of their manhood cracking pebbles in it.

"You don't deny that?" asked the smug parson, "do you, Dawes?"

"It's not my place to argue with you, sir," said Dawes, in a tone of
indifference, born of lengthened suffering, so nicely balanced between
contempt and respect, that the inexperienced Meekin could not tell
whether he had made a convert or subjected himself to an impertinence;
"but I'm a prisoner for life, and don't look at it in the same way that
you do."

This view of the question did not seem to have occurred to Mr. Meekin,
for his mild cheek flushed. Certainly, the fact of being a prisoner for
life did make some difference. The sound of the noonday bell, however,
warned him to cease argument,