er Fay sat down on the bench as he had sat
down on it many a time before, hunched and weary.

For the three years, or nearly, in which Matt had been shut up here the
father had spent with him as many as possible of the minutes allowed for
intercourse, prolonging the sense of communion by sitting and staring at
the walls. In times past he had stared in patient longing for the moment
of the boy's release; but this morning he only stared. Behind the
staring, thought was too inactive for either retrospect or forecast; and
thought was inactive because both past and future now contained elements
too big for the overtaxed mind to deal with. He could only sit wearily
and expectantly on the bench, watching, at the end of one of the long
wings, a small gray door on which he had been told to keep his eyes.

After the first flicker of light the day came slowly. The lowlands
around the prison were shrouded in a thin gray mist, through which
Lombardy poplars and warders' cottages and prison walls loomed ghostly.
When, a few minutes after the clock in the pinnacle had struck five, the
gray door opened soundlessly and a shadowy form slipped out, the effect
was like that of a departed spirit materializing within human ken.

The shadowy form shook hands with some one who remained unseen, and
after it had taken a step or two forward the soundless door shut it out.
It looked timorous and lone in the wide, ghostly landscape, advancing a
few paces, stopping, searching, advancing again, but uncertainly. As it
emerged more fully into view it disclosed a bundle in the hand, a light
gray suit, and a common round straw hat. It moved as though testing
ground that might give way beneath it or as trying the conditions of
some new and awesome sphere of existence into which it had suddenly been
thrust.

With all his remaining forces concentrated into one sharp, eager look,
Jasper Fay crept forward. The ground-mist blurring his outlines, the two
dim figures were face to face before the son perceived his father's
presence or approach. On doing so he started back.

"Why, father! What's the matter? You look"--his voice dropped to
faintness--"you look--terrible."

But the father's faculties were already too exhausted to catch the
movement and note of dismay. He was drained even of emotion. All he
could do was to extend his hand with the casual greeting: "Well, Matt!
How are you? Come to meet you."

He explained, however, the immediate program, which