"Quiet toil," he replied, with a sneer. "Some capitalist gets hold of you. He sucks all the life out of you. Hard work, small pay, no play. When you're old, you're kicked in the gutter to die. I was once in a factory--" "What is the merit of your present occupation?" she asked, grimly. "You work when you like, you're your own boss; you have travel, and a kind of feeling of free drinks in you all the time,--sprees and a chance for rest when you make a good haul, and the country to take care of you when you're old. The worse you do, the better you're looked after. I'm going to help some likely person off the boards when I'm sixty. Some one like yourself, ma'am. Then I'll have good lawyers, and new trials, and soft food, and flowers, and ladies to visit me, and maybe go bang free." Miss Gastonguay had fallen into a kind of waking trance. Her eye pierced the young man's face,--looked through it to some scene unknown. He saw that she was not thinking of him, and he favoured her with a curiously appreciative and intelligent glance. Presently she roused herself and said, solemnly, "Young man, I am going to trust you. Here, take this rope off your waist," and she tossed him the end. "Sit up on that bench and look me squarely in the face. Here I sit, your best friend at the present minute. Talk freely to me. We are two erring mortals; get out of your mind that I am any better off than you. If you open your mind to me you will not regret it. I ask you now in the sight of God, do you like your present life?" The young man sat down in the place indicated, and scrutinised her sharply and narrowly. "Time is precious," she said, warningly, "I mean what I say. Tear off your disguise. We all wear one,--I do. Here I show you my naked heart. I am going to let you escape. If you linger, you may be caught. The townspeople will not be so merciful. If you're a bad fellow, tell me so, and go. If you want help, I'll give it to you." The young criminal smiled slightly, then his cynical expression faded away, and he took on an air of sincerity. "I believe you, ma'am. I've reason to. I'll talk straight. Yes, I like my life good enough." "Where were you brought up?" "In New York,--in what you call the slums." "What made you a criminal?" "I didn't want to work." "Oh,--you wanted luxuries?" "Yes, ma'am. I was ambitious. I hadn't anything. I might get everything." "Who was that man with you?" "A pal; you wouldn't know him if I told you." "A curious pal to run away from you!" The burglar smiled again. "What good could he do by staying? He's only skedaddled to lay plans to get me out of your gingerbread jail here if I choose to go into it." "Then you criminals stand by each other?" Her morbid curiosity did not surprise him. "I guess we stand by each other as well as the capitalists." "Did you ever hear this sentence, young man,--'Whatsoever a man soweth, that also shall he reap?'" "Often, ma'am, in the training-school." "The what?"