Crawford avalanche. (Grayling, Mich.) 1879-19??, 1895-05-02

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remember, though he knew they had
quarreled. The judge himself,
charging the jury, said that he never
before saw prisoner so frank and
outwardly honest, hut warned them
that they must not lose sight OF the
crime itself, the taking OF human
life, whereby woman was made o
widow and child fatherless.
And so with the few remarks the
judge sentenced the young Seigneur
to ten years In prison. and then him.
self, shaken and pale, left the court
room hurriedly, for Louis Converse's
father had been his friend rom boy
hood.
Louis took his sentence calmly,
looking the Judge squarely in the
eyes, and when the judge stopped he
bowed to him. turned to the jury and
said: Gentlemen. you have ruined
my life. You don't know and ]
don't know who killed the man. You
have guessed, and take the penalty.
Suppose I'm innocent, how will you
feel when the truth comes out?
You've known me more or less these
twenty years, and you've said with
no more knowledge than I've got that
/ did this miserable thing. ! don't
know but that one OF you did it, but
you are safe, and l take my ten
years."
He turned from them, and as he
did he saw woman looking at him
from o corner of the court room with
O strange, wild expression. At the
moment he saw no more than an ex-
cited, bewildered face, but afterward
this face came and went before him,
flashing in and out of dark places in
a hooking sort Of way. AS he went
from the court room another woman
made her way to him in spite Of the
guards. 1t was the little chemists
wife who years before had been his
fathers housekeeper. who had been
present when he first opened his eyes
on the world.
my poor boy My poor boy!" she
said. clasping his manacled hands.
He kissed her on the cheek, with
out word, and hurried on into his
prison, and the good world was shut
out. In prison he refused to see all
visitors, even Medallion, the little
chemists wife. and the good Father
Fabre. Letters, too, he refused to
accept and read. He had no contact,
wished no contact. with the outer
world, but lived his hard. lonely life
by himself, silent, brooding, studi-
ous-for now books were to him q
pleasure. And he wrote, too, but
never to any soul outside the prison.
This life had nothing to do with the
world from which he came, and he
meant that it should not.
So perfect prisoner was he that
the warders protected him from visi-
tors, and he was never but once or
twice stared at, and then he saw
nothing, heard nothing. He had en-
tered his prison wild, excitable.
dissipated youth. and he had become
o mature, quiet, cold, brooding man.
Five years had done the work Of
twenty. He had lived the life Of the
prison, yet he was not q part Of it,
nor yet was he part of the world
without. And the face Of the woman
who looked at him so strangely in the
court room haunted him now and
then, so that at last it became part
of his real life, which was lived
standing by the window, where he
looked out at the pigeons on the
roof OF the hospital.
"She was sorry for me-" he said
many a time to himself. He was
sorry for himself, and he was shaken
with misery often, so that he rocked
to and fro as he sat on his bed, and
warder heard him cry out even in
the last days Of his Imprisonment,
"Oh, God, canst Thou do everything
but speak?" And again: THAT
hour! the memory Of that hour, in
exchange for my ruined life !"
But there were times when he was
very quiet and calm. and he spent
hours in watching the ways Of the
pigeons. And he was doing this one
day when the jailor came to him and
said: Monsieur Converse, you are
free. The Governor has cut of five
years from your sentence"
Then he was told that people were
waiting without-Medallion, and the
little chemist and wife, and others
more important. But lie would not
90 to meet them, and he stepped into
the old world alone at dawn the next
morning, and looked out upon still,
sleeping town. And there wa. no
one stirring in the place, but sud-
denly there stood before him wom-
an, who had watched by the prison
gates all night, and she put out q
hand in entreaty, and said, with a
breaking voice, ''You are free at
last !"
He remembered her-the woman
who had looked at him so anxiously
and sorrowfully in the court room.
He looked at her kindly now, yet he
was dnzed, too, with his new advent
to freedom and good earth.
"Why did you come to meet me?"
he asked.
II was sorry for you" she replied.
But that is no reason"
II once committed q crime" she
whispered, with shrinking bitterness.
That's bad" he said. ''Were
you punished2"
She shook her head and answered
mo"
That's worse" he added.
II let some one else take my crime
upon him and be punished for IL"
she said, an agony in her eyes.
"Why was that?" he said, looking
at her intently.,