Atlanta Georgian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, 1912-08-06
TODAY s INSTALLMENT.

So the days passed. and the weeks
! heightened into months, until iust-as it
seemed to him-when he had got to that
stage of his prison life when the outer
world had become more or less of an alb
straction. and the inner life of the prison
a more or less numb pain. the news came
to him that for some reason his time of
probation had been shortened, and that
instead of spending the probationary nine
months at Norwood Scrubs, he was to
be drafted off at the end of the third to
one of the regular convict establishments
I The thought of the journey from Lon
don to Bilmouth-which, after the veil OF
mysterious secrecy which is characteristic
of prison discipline in such matters was
Withdrawn. he finally learned was his
destination not, oddly enough, fill
Jack Remington with any sense of shrink
| ing. on the contrary, he felt certain
quickening of interest in him under the
crust of apathy that every day had
seemed to be hardening upon his heart.
To leave this whitewashed cell. to
! breathe air that was not the contami-
mated air of a prison exercise yard. to see
green grass that was not overshadowed
! by prison walls-perhaps to hear birds
sing; the more he let his Imagination
play over the pitiful fact of his journey
from one place of degradation to another
the more Rimingtons excitement grew.
! For all the pain that in accomplishment
it cost him, perhaps this change saved
him his reason. or least arrested that
mental degeneration that was undoubtedly
in progress.
/ During the first weeks of his impris-
onment his mind had wrestled with the
problem of the crime of which he was
accused until his brain had reeled
Who had killed Fitzstephen?
He had forced himself to face the facts
Of the money lenders death from every
point of view to canously fix the guilt
! upon first one and then another Betty.
| even-a crime Of Madness the man who
! had escaped prison and the death of
the rope to die at the hands of Anthony
/ Darlington; PAU SAKE himself For
time the conviction of SaXes implication
in the crime was so strong as to induce
! that parONysm of despair in which all
! things solid had slipped from beneath his
feet; but gradually the conviction had
died. 1t was not Paul SAKE. 1t was not
Betty; no, never again would that
thought cross his mind The weary
| treadmill of his thoughts had never
! brought him any nearer to a solution,
| clew or hope, and gradually the
thoughts and wonderings and mental
striVings had ceased.
| Even the glad vision that had some
times eomforted and sometimes mad
! 1ened him, when he bad seen in imagi-
nation his cell door flung open and a
| remorseful governor come to inform him
| that the criminal had confessed, and
that he was free-even that had passed
| also. He had begun to acuuiesce in
! his lot-begun to settle down to be a
number, a man without a name, a small
nut or rivet in vast and complicated
| piece of machinery, when just in time had
come the merciful awakening of the
change to Bilmouth
THE shame of mote$'
That was the phrase that came to Rim
! ington's mind when he saw his fellow
| travellers collected and himself nirrored
in the person of each one of them The
hideous prison garb, marked ironically
/ with the symbols of swift flight the
ringed stockings and the great boots.
| He felt sick with shame at the sight of
them familiar as it was To be linked
to these men with the shaven heads and
| the evil, degraded faces chained to them
and paraded for all the world to see.
rare sight to be pointed out to fortunate
children on station platforms, to be ieered
at. perhaps spat upon, by the vrtuous
free! In his cell, thinking Of this jour
ney, Rimington had thought Of none of
these things. Now the thought of them
was to poison every moment of what had
| doomed up as a great and glorious event
in his life
He dreaded lest any one should recop-
nizc him as he stood in his infamous
garb waiting beside the train. while
about him his companions laughed and
ioked and made the most of this mo-
ment Of comparative freedom He need
not have feared; even Betty herself might
| have looked twice at the tan figure, a