for the boisterous
wind, which tossed it about her head and face in the most fantastic
manner. Long since the covetous mud had snatched from her feet the
little kid shoes, of which she had been so proud. Her reason had now
entirely gone, and she babbled incessantly.

"I hope the priest who is to marry us will wait till I come," she
fretted; "I did not mean to be late. How funny that they should now
call Ovide No. 317, instead of his right name." She attempted to
laugh, but no sound reached her lips.

"If I could only walk faster," she whispered. Her strength was
well-nigh spent and the penitentiary was yet a mile away. Her feet
were so heavy that she could hardly drag them along; the mud had clung
to them so that they looked strangely huge and out of proportion.

As she neared the end of her journey, the road grew worse, the puddles
deeper and wider. At first the poor girl had not fallen very often,
but now the frequent dull splashes told a pitiful tale. Yet the rain
fell none the less persistently, nor did the wind grow less
aggressive.

At length, the grey dawn struggled through the clouds, which still
doggedly hugged the earth, and drove away the gloomy shadows which
enveloped the high unpicturesque walls of the penitentiary. The rain
had ceased falling; even the wind had grown weary, and its faint
whispering could now scarcely be heard.

As the clouds rose slowly above the walls of the penitentiary, the
ghastly pinched face of Marie was revealed. She was on her hands and
knees, climbing up the heap of stones which the convicts had broken
and banked against the great walls. Around her face and shoulders
streamed the tresses of her dark wet hair, while the fragment of veil
which still remained trailed raggedly after her. As she crawled ever
higher, the stones' jagged edges cut her hands and knees, but she did
not feel the wounds; she was too far exhausted. When near the summit,
she stopped abruptly; a shudder ran through her slight frame. For a
few moments her hands clutched at the sharp stones, then she sprang to
her feet, her body rigid, her eyes wild and staring. The end had come.
"Ovide, I am here!" she gasped, and then fell heavily backward,
rolling down the pile of stones into the hole near the wall, which the
carters had made. The weary eyes were wide open and turned toward the
sky, but they no longer comprehended; the disordered brain no longer
conjured up fantastic scenes, nor gave birth to diseased tho