ughts; the
rest she had so long needed had come to her at last, and she
slept--slept that deep, dreamless sleep from which not even he, for
whom she had sacrificed so much, could wake her.

As the light grew more distinct, there stood revealed, on the top of
the walls, four sentry-boxes. At short intervals, through the mist,
the forms of the sentries could be seen, as they slowly paced to and
fro, with rifles resting on their shoulders.

The thick air was suddenly pierced by the penitentiary clock
discordantly striking the hour of five. Hardly had its echoes died
away when the clanking of chains and the decisive voices of the guards
could be heard, issuing from the great stone building in the centre of
the yard. Half an hour later the heavily-barred doors of the
penitentiary swung open, and the convicts, surrounded by guards, filed
slowly out into the courtyard. Before the men were taken to the
various places of labor, they were ranged in single file, and their
numbers called out.

Nearly all the prisoners responded in sullen, rebellious tones. But
the voice that answered to No. 317 was full of contrition and
hopelessness. Six months before, the young convict who bore this
number was known as Ovide Demers, nephew of Little Mother Soulard. The
day that had just expired was to have been his wedding-day, and little
Marie Ethier, whom he had played with when a child, was to have been
his wife. All night long, as he tossed about in his cell, he had been
thinking of her and of his two old aunts who had taken him to their
meagre home when his parents died, and had watched over and cared for
him with the love of a mother. They had believed in him--although,
alas! his guilt was so glaringly apparent--even when the whole world
had forsaken him. So, because of all these things, his heart, on this
gloomy morning, was almost breaking; little wonder that his voice
nearly failed as he answered to the number that now stood for his
name.

The file of convicts was broken up into gangs; "317" belonged to the
stone-breaking gang, and worked outside the frowning walls. As they
slowly passed out of the gate to the road, the sentries unswung their
rifles--many successful attempts to escape had been made by convicts
in the past.

Slowly the men were marched along the road, till they came to the
great mound of stones, heaped against the walls, where they were put
to work. Watchfully the guards stood near by, while the sentries,
equally