The enterprise. [volume] (Harlem, Mont.) 1899-1926, 1914-04-23
CHAPTER l..
The Panel Of Liqht.

THE lids Of the girls eyes lifted
slowly, and she stared at the
panel of light in the WALL Just
at the outset the act of seeing
made not the least impression on he1
numbed brain. For long time she
continued to regard the dim ilumina-
ton tn the wall with the same passive
hxlty OF gaze. Apathy still lay upon
her crushed spirit. In vague way
she realized her own inertness and rest
ed in it gratefully, subtly fearful lest
she again arouse to the full horror of
her plight. In curious subconscious
fashion she was striving to hold on to
this deafness of sensation, thus to win
a little respite from the torture that
had exhausted her soul.
OF sudden her eyes noted the black
lines that lay across the panel of light,
and in that instant her spirit was
qu1ckened once again. The clouds lift
ed from her brain. Vision was clear
now Understanding seized the full
import Of this hideous thing OH which
she looked. For the panel of light was
window set high within wall of
stone. The rigid lines of black that
crossed It We're bars-prison bars. 1t
was still true, then. She was in cell
of the Tombs.
Crouchfng miserably OH the narrow
bed, she maintained her fixed watching
of the window-that window which
was a symbol of her utter despair
. Again agony wrenched within her.
The girl was appalled, by the merci-
1essness of destiny that had so out
ragged right. She was wholly innocent
OF having done any wrong. She had
struggled through years of privation to
keep herself clean and wholesome, wor-
thy of those gentlefolk from whom she
drew her blood. And earnest effort
had ended at last under an overwhelm-
Ing accusation, false, yet none the less
fatal to her. This accusation after soul
wearying delays had eliminated today
in conviction. The sentence of the
court had been imposed upon her-that
for three years she should be impris-
Oned.
There had been nothing in the life
of Mary Turner before the catastrophe
came to distinguish 1t from many an
other. Its most significant details were
of sordid kind, familiar to poverty.
Her father had been an unsuccessful
man as success is esteemed by this gem
GRAFTON Of Mammon worshipers. He
was gentleman, but the trivial fact
is of small avail today. He was Of good
birth, and he was the possessor of an
inherited competence. He had as we'll
intelligence, but it was not Of finan-
cial sort.
So, little by little, his fortuAe be-
came shrunken toward nothingness
by reason of injudicious investments.
He married a charming woman, who,
after brief period of welded happi-
ness, gave her life to the birth of the
single child of the union, Mary. AS
the years passed the daughter grew
toward maturity in an experience of
ever increasing penury. The girl was
in the high school when her father
finally gave over his rather feeble eff
fort of living. At his death the father
left her a character we'll instructed in
the excellent principles that had been
his own. OF worldly goods, not the
value of pin.
Yet, measured according to the stern
standards of adversely, Mary was for
tunate. Almost at once she procured
a humble employment in the Empori-
UNI, the great department store own
ed by Edward Glider. TO be sure, the
wage was ininitesmal while the toll
was body breaking, soul breaking.
Mary nevertheless avoided the worst
AAA-A--Aat4~aaAaEz aAsa.&.s------ ->----.- -