On this particular day a new inmate made his appearance in the workroom. He was a Northerner; long and sinuous, with a grey, wrinkled face, and small, pale eyes. It was not easy to tell his age, but the men laughed when he announced himself as twenty-two. He began at once to complain of the heat and of the sickening smell of fish that filled the room. Ah, he was no cobbler; no, indeed! He was the only son of a wealthy wholesale shoe-dealer,--a gentleman, in fact. And thereupon he recounted his unfortunate history. He had, it appeared, been so unlucky as to kill a rival in love; there had been provocation and he had ripped him open in the back,--simply that! The woman who was the real cause of the crime had consumption, and now she was dying from grief,--dying, simply that! Moreover, there was a child in the question, a son of the prisoner's by the sick woman. If she died, the boy would be left orphaned and abandoned. Costantino trembled at this; not, indeed, that the man's story affected him particularly, but because the picture of the woman and the child reminded him of Giovanna and the sick Malthineddu. The newcomer, who was cutting a pair of soles with considerable skill, now became silent, and bent over, intent upon his work, his under lip trembling like that of a child about to cry. Costantino, watching him, reflected that though he knew that this man must be suffering intensely he felt as indifferent as did any of the others: he too, then, had lost the power of sympathising with the sorrows of others! The thought filled him with dismay and made him more insanely anxious to get out than ever. That day, as soon as he saw the _King of Spades_, he drew him over to a corner where the sun-baked wall cast a little spot of shade; but when he had got him there he could not bring himself to begin on his own troubles. Instead he repeated the story told by the new arrival. The other shrugged his shoulders and spat against the wall. "If he wants to, even he can write," he said. "But I should advise prudence, some one is nosing about." "How are we ever going to manage after you have gone?" said Costantino thoughtfully. "You would like to keep me here forever, you rascal?" demanded the other in a rallying tone. "Heaven forbid! No, indeed; I only wish you might get out to-morrow!"