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The Twin Hells; a thrilling narrative of life in the Kansas and Missouri penitentiaries by John N. Reynolds
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Atchison. As to the ring that sent me to prison, some of them are
dead, others have left Atchison to make their homes in other places,
others have failed financially, and still others have fallen so low
that they have scarcely friends enough to bury them should they happen
to die.

The big wheel of life keeps on revolving. Those who are up to-day may
be down to-morrow, and vice versa. But to continue my narrative.
Immediately after my conviction and sentence I was taken to the
Leavenworth County jail. Here I remained until the following Tuesday
in the company of a dozen or more prisoners who were awaiting trial.
On Sunday, while in this jail, my wife, who died during my
imprisonment of a broken heart, and an account of which is given in a
subsequent chapter, came to see me. I can never forget this visit. She
remained with me during the entire day. During the conversation of the
day I said to her that, it seemed that the future appeared very
gloomy. That it would be a miracle if I ever was able to survive the
disgrace that had been so cruelly placed upon me. That all ambition
and hope as to the future had fled, and that I could not blame her if
she should now free herself by means of divorce, as my conviction of
crime was a legal ground for divorce in Kansas. In reply to this, the
noble little woman, her face aglow with the radiance of womanly
devotion, said, that for twenty years of married life our home had
been one of sunshine; that I had been kind to her and made her life
one of happiness, and that now, when misfortune came, it was not only
a duty, but the highest pleasure, to prove her fidelity. She kept her
word. She was true to the last. When dying, her last words were a
petition for the blessings of God upon her husband who was far away
behind frowning prison walls. On Tuesday morning a deputy United
States marshal came to the jail and gave me notice that in a few
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