something which for a
long time must have been there, something that had been acting on him
and in him without his knowledge. It was the key to another prison, the
key to the prison that life often is and which, in the great defeats,
every man who is a man finds at his feet and usually without looking for
it either.

"But I love her!" he suddenly exclaimed.

There is a magic in those words. No sooner were they uttered than his
mind became a rendezvous of apparitions. He saw Cassy as he had seen her
first, as he had seen her last, as he had seen her through all the
changes and mutations of their acquaintance, saw her eyes lifted to his,
saw her face turned from him.

The crystallisation which, operating in the myriad cells of the brain,
creates our tastes, our temptations, our desires; creates them unknown
to us, creates them even against our will, and which without his will or
knowledge, had, like a chemical precipitate, been acting on him, then
was complete.

"I love her!" he repeated.

The dirty cot, the dirty cell, the dirty floor, a point of view was
transforming. At the moment they ceased to be revolting. Then
immediately another view restored their charm.

"She won't have me!"

The dirty cell reshaped itself and he thought of life, a blind fate
treacherous always.

"Good Lord, how I envy you!"

Lennox turned. Wriggling through the bars a hand which a keeper checked,
stood Jones.

"When Cervantes enjoyed the advantages that you possess, the walls
parted and through them cavalcaded the strumpet whose name is Fame. In
circumstances equally inspiring Bunyan entertained that hussy. Verlaine
too. From a dungeon she lifted him to Parnassus, lifted him to the top.
If I only had their luck--and yours! It is too good for you. You don't
appreciate it. Besides you will be out to-morrow."

"I ought not to be here at all," Lennox indignantly retorted.

"No, you are most undeserving. Mais ecoute. C'est le pere de la petite
qui a fait le coup. Il me l'a avoue, ensuite il a claque et depuis j'ai
vu ton avocat. C'est une brute mais----"

"Can that," put in the keeper, a huge creature with a cauliflower face,
dingy and gnarled. "You guys got to cough English."

Ingratiatingly Jones turned to him. "I mistook you for a distinguished
foreigner. Dear me, my life is too full of pleasure!"

He turned to Lennox. "That's it. You are here to-day and gone to-morrow.
Now that I have envied you insufficiently I'll go too. W