wouldn't have anybody left in the penitentiary. He's in for five
years--considering what he'll pick up here, it might as well be for
life. Amnesia--that's what the doctors call it--amnesia following some
sort of a mental trouble. In the end you'll see that I'm right."

Sprigley was right. To Ben Kinney life was like a single pale light in
a long, dark street. Complete loss of memory prevented him from looking
backward. Complete loss of hope kept him from looking ahead.

It had been this way for months now--ever since the night the policeman
had found him, the "jimmy" dropped from his hands, in the alley. Heaven
knows what he had done, what madness had been upon him, before that
time. But as Sprigley had said, that night had marked a change. It was
true that so far as facts went he was no better off: when he had come to
himself he had found his mind a blank regarding not only his career of
crime, but all the years that had gone before. Even his own name eluded
him. That of Kinney had an alien sound in his ears.

The past had simply ceased to exist for him; and because it is some way
the key to the future, the latter seemed likewise blank,--a toneless
gray that did not in the least waken his interest. Indeed the only light
that flung into the unfathomable darkness of his forgetfulness was that
which played in his dreams at night. Sometimes these were inordinately
vivid, quite in contrast to the routine of prison life.

He felt if he could only recall these dreams clearly they would
interpret for him the mystery of his own life. He wakened, again and
again, with the consciousness of having dreamed the most stirring,
amazing dreams, but what they were he couldn't tell. He could only
remember fragments, such as a picture of rushing waters recurring again