This loss of the
money was but a symbol of the furtive, hopeless insecurity she lived with
day and night, now forced into the light, for herself and all the world
to see. She felt it suddenly a bitter, unfair thing. This beastly
little man did not share her insecurity. None of us shared it--none of
us, who had brought her down to this. And, quite unable to explain to
her how natural and proper it all was, I only murmured: "I am sorry,
awfully sorry," and fled away.
PANEL II
It was just a week later when, having for passport my Grand Jury summons,
I presented myself at that prison where we had the privilege of seeing
the existence to which we had assisted so many of the eighty-six.
"I'm afraid," I said to the guardian of the gate, "that I am rather late
in availing myself--the others, no doubt----?"
"Not at all, sir," he said, smiling. "You're the first, and if you'll
excuse me, I think you'll be the last. Will you wait in here while I
send for the chief warder to take you over?"
He showed me then to what he called the Warder's Library--an iron-barred
room, more bare and brown than any I had seen since I left school. While
I stood there waiting and staring out into the prison court-yard, there
came, rolling and rumbling in, a Black Maria. It drew up with a clatter,
and I saw through the barred door the single prisoner--a young girl of
perhaps eighteen--dressed in rusty black.
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