must go to prison?"

"Why, certainly. Don't you see how necessary that is? What would
happen to society if thieves were left unpunished?"

"Thief!" The word fell on his ears with tragic force. A thief in
prison! Was this to be the end of all his striving? Were the high
hopes and ambitions of his splendid youth to end, at length, behind
the bars of a thief's cell? Ah, those happy, bygone days, when with
unbounded hope and confidence he had promised all things to the lovely
creature he had wooed and won and wed in that toy village far away in
the Black Forest! What was their fruition! Unhappiness, disgrace and
exile for her loveliness, and finally a child for whom she paid the
supreme price of death. His promises, breathed at her bedside of
unwavering care, unfaltering devotion, unfailing happiness for the wee
baby in the years to come--how had he kept them? Poverty, distress,
privation. With such commodities had he redeemed those promises, and,
finally, had driven the girl, naturally as sweet-souled as an angel,
as pure as the new-fallen snow, to vulgar crime to satisfy, no doubt,
those girlish and quite natural desires which it should have been his
duty and his pleasure to provide for. Oh, he had done well with life!
The soul within him writhed in agony as he reflected on the use which
he had made of it. His heart went sick from shame. And--what would
Anna do without him?

"Ah, yes, Madame; I see," said he. "I see. Society must be protected
from such folk as I. Yes; that is very clear indeed. We menace it. The
place for us is where stone walls surround us--to protect society;
locks hold us--to protect society; death comes quickly to us--to
protect society. I see all that, Madame. I will go to prison as a