“I thought I knew your swing, McCall, two squares off.  Looking for me?”

“No:  I followed a lady, a friend of mine, who has just gone in at the gate.”

“You know her, eh?” eagerly.  “A most attractive little girl, I thought:  She went in with the chaplain to see one of the prisoners.”

McCall paused, his hand on the gate.  A horrible doubt stopped his heart-beating for an instant.  But how utterly absurd it was!  Only because this black shadow pursued him always could such a fancy have come to him.  “The prisoner is a woman?” with forced carelessness.

“Yes.  A poor wretch brought here last spring for shoplifting.  Her term’s out next week.  She has had a sharp attack of pneumonia, and has not much strength to bear it:  she is a miserable wreck from opium-eating.”

“Opium-eating?  Can I go in?” said McCall.

“Certainly.”

When the woman heard their steps on the corridor she said to Catharine, “I hear my husband coming now.”

“That will be pleasant for you,” kindly, wondering to herself what sort of a ruffian had chosen this creature for a mate and had the burden of her to carry.

“Yes, I know his step,” turning dully to the door.  It opened, and Hugh Guinness stood on the threshold.

He halted one brief moment.  It seemed to Catharine that he was an older man than she had known him.

“It is you, then, Louise?” he said calmly, going up to the bed and looking down on her, his hands clasped, as usual, behind him.

“Yes, it is I. I thought you would like to see me and talk things over before I died, Hugh.”  She held out her hand, but he did not touch it.  Looking at her a moment from head to foot as she lay in her unclean garments, he turned to where the other woman stood, a ray of light from the window shining on her fair hair and innocent face:  “Do you know that I am Hugh Guinness, Kitty?”

“I knew that long ago.”

“This,” nodding down at the pallet, “is my wife.  Now do you know why I could not go home to my father or to you?”

“God help us!” ejaculated Pollard.  The next moment, remembering himself, he put his hand on McCall’s shoulder:  “I understand.  When you were a boy, eh?  Never mind:  every man has his own trouble to carry.”

“I’ve been a very real trouble to you, Hugh,” whined Louise.  “But I always loved you:  I always meant to come back to you.”

“When her later husbands had abandoned her.”  McCall laughed savagely, turning away.

She started up on the pallet, clenching her bony, dirty hands:  “There were faults on both sides.  I never would have been the woman I am if you had loved me.  What will you do with me now?”

There was a dead silence in the cell, broken only by the heavy breathing of the woman.  McCall stood dumb, looking first at Catharine and then at his wife.

“This is what he will do,” said Kitty’s clear, quiet tones.  “You shall be washed and dressed, and taken home as his wife, to live or die as suits God’s will.”