The Detroit times. [volume] (Detroit, Mich.) 1903-1920, 1913-09-13
CHAPTER Xxx.
TIE Stone staircase.

barred window high up the steep
side of this castle and stared out visit
fully at the receding infnity OF blue
ness--his meadow. In the three
months snce his letter had gone TO
France, te had grown old. The juices
OF his youth seemed dried up his
eyes wee bioodshot. his skin yellow;
there WIS no flesh on him. The wait
ing and hoping had worn on him
more than the dead level OF the hope
less years before. There was a new
teusen0s In the lightly-built figure.
even 1, the long. delicate. strong
fingers The prisoner had caught q
Whit Of the Az of home and was
choking for full breath.
II Rad not been 80 before. The
brightness of his temperament had
done him good service at first.
EageI vehement. energetic, he had
the teart Of contented little child,
and II had led HIM to play and be
happy In his prison. as buoyant
child will make boat Of the chair
In which he is set fo- q punishment
and nil away into adventures. This
man. developing out Of the boy
thrown into rriscp Ave years ago,
might we'll prove to have limitations
Full of force and Are and gentlencss
he had the virtues of his qualities,
but he had their defects, too. 1t
might yet well be that he would fall
short In sober Judgment; It might DC
that he would not be found fitted Tor
any complication OF responsibility.
Yet there was In him something OF
the vision Of the mystic. something
of that power-called what 1t may
be--which has In all ages worked mir
acles and moved mountains. Out OF
his companions, sea and sky and ais
tance-out of great spaces outside
and great silence inside his prison he
had drawn power. and risen step by
step In the years. On the foundation
Of the Catholicism In which he had
been brought up he had built re-
ligion whose breadth reached right
and left beyond the old measure and
covered living things with the char
ity which suffers long and Is kind;
whose height stretched up into hopes
underlined, OF things unseen. All OF
this had comforted him and kept the
glow Of his soul undulled.
But since Battista's son, the little
Battista--who had been q fisherman
and not much known about the castle
since he had gone to France with
those two letters of Francois sewed
into his right coat sleeve. restless
ness all but uncomfortable had seized
the prisoner. He knew as we'll as
HE jailer. tales of men thrown into
dungeon coming out many years az
ter old and broken--of men never
coming out at all. No crueler tyrants
than the Austrians ever ruled, and
no more pitiless. And now that his
letters had actually gone, now that
they might actually b In the hands
of the people he loved and who loved
him, unrest tortured him. He count
&c the days OF the journey. the
chances of delay. he made allow
ances. and at last he believed, with
. thrill OF Joy and Of pain at each
thought of It. that little Battista must
have. arrived at Vicques, that his
mother and Alike must have his let
tiers. With that, unrest grew fercer.
They could not help him. What
could they do? How could they do
anything against the iron wall OF
Austrian power?
He said such things over to him
self. even aloud, to keep down
hope which he could not bear to let
grow, for fear of the anguish OF It's
slow death But the hope grew and
was anguish In It's growth. He could
not help hoping. believing. that the
general, that P!etro. that Alike. with
her force and energy and inventive