it is good to look at the little people he spoke in english and with a strong french accent they are so gay always they know so little of care to sing and shout and jump that is the business of life well as good a business as any other when all is said and done he shrugged his shoulders and folded his arms upon his hollow chest shivering as the keen sea by graves s breeze crept in at the of his and his gaunt body he did not beg or seem about to the impulse was self prompted that stretched s hand to him with a silver coin in it take this you look ill or hungry hungry madame said the man softly a thousand thanks he hid the coin about him and saluted lady again the lifted cap revealed a narrow head shaved almost to the skin upon the temples was a livid new healed and ugly you are a stranger to a stranger madame i came from yesterday a brought me in his boat i am not particular as to my accommodation as madame will guess nor was the yet he took all my money and left me without enough to buy a meal you have friends in the island no and yes the man returned the little daughter of one who was an old comrade of mine lives here in charge of a woman who was her foster mother and has married a of the stone works madame has seen her playing with the children of the good she did not know who looked at her and questioned of her name just now when last i saw her five years ago she was but four years old at four years by the fate of old the little could not be expected to understand � madame is cold shrunk and shivered at the sound of that hated name she recovered herself in another instant she looked at the forlorn creature who tried to interest her in his little story with compassionate gentleness can the father not come himself to see his child she asked is he an invalid or the man answered her shortly and harshly the father is in prison he laughed a grating laugh and ground the heel of his broken boot upon the pavement has madame patience to hear his story common enough common enough the father of the little black haired one was once a clerk in a bank at he had assured prospects enough for present wants a charming � oh a charming wife � and a child charming women are apt to be vain vain ones are apt to be extravagant madame she wanted money � always money her husband was like wax in her hands i she her wax well � so well she made of an honest man a rogue madame a and a thief he broke off to wipe away the leaden drops that had gathered on his face with a miserable rag of a tattered handkerchief his gaunt figure quivered and the started out like on the ba pf wasted hands by graves spoke to him gently it you to speak of it she said it me to speak of it figure to yourself madame how this man must have loved that wretch to sin so at her bidding and she � she had not even the merit of being faithful to him he found that out before the trial � for the were discovered and he was arrested he her as his she fled before the law could lay hands on her � with one who had been for long her secret lover his face was frightful as he said the words if he had been himself the wretched whose dreadful story he had upon his lips he could not have looked and spoken with greater but he went on so my friend � always my friend madame will remember � is found guilty and to imprisonment for eight years he is sent to the at labor absolute silence silence in the silence in the silence in the yard silence in bed from half past six until six the next morning is the routine madame would never imagine how many cries of and despair how many sobs of anguish how many oaths of vengeance can be packed into the space of one human breast that has the of the law upon it by the fa te of he struck his own breast as he spoke fiercely and shook his clenched hand in the air i have been a prisoner myself he went on madame is not afraid of me i knew that man at prisoners have methods of communication in spite of rules and i knew his sorrow as he my own i promised him when my hour of came i would visit the island to which his child had been taken see her without speaking to her and send him word the last two years of his sentence have yet to before my friend can speak unless he grows desperate as a man does when the end is near and escapes from prison is a strong place but there is a way out of it he has told me so here are the little ones returning you are madame accept my thanks the gratitude of a poor man whom you have helped upon his way i have not wearied you with the story of my friend a common criminal no more and once having been in prison as people say it is twenty to one that he will eventually return there i myself also but the next crime of which that man is found guilty will not be yielded to an impulse she looked full into the hollow glistening eyes she put a question to the ragged creature not she said repeating his words � what then by graves the man bent toward her 