John had remained an hour by Edith's bed talking in very confidential terms to those two divine maidens--one of them rich, one of them poor, but both blessed with many heavenly virtues. Edith was growing restless; although through it all John had been careful of what he said, and how he said it, so as not to excite her. "Are you going?" she asked, seeing him rise. "I am sorry I cannot withstand the strain longer." "I should go," he answered. "You will come tomorrow? then I will be better," lifting up her hand to bid him good bye. He knelt down by the bed, and held her hand in both of his for a moment. How it trembled, and how it thrilled him! "Good bye," she said. Oh, he prayed, within his heart, that she might be well in that moment of his own deep affliction, so that the fear that was in him might be expelled, and he knew his fate. "Good bye," she said. Going down the stairs he could hear that tremulous little voice saying, "Good bye." All through the dinner he heard it ringing like the distant trembulations of a wind-bell; going out the house he heard it calling after him; all the way to the city he heard it tinkling, tinkling from everything about the fleeting things in the streets, turning all the grime and misery into music. Going to his room it kept trembling, trembling, till that dingy little place was a Paradise. And going into sleep it kept singing--singing "Good bye! Good b-y-e! G-o-o-d----b--y--e!" CHAPTER XVIII. PETER DIEMAN IS AVENGED. Black and sinister, like The Bastille, rears the bulky rambling building of that famous institution where infractors of the law are compensated for their weaknesses. Amidst verdent hills and by the murky river it sits as a ramparted fortress in a savage land. In sunshine and cloud, in fog and smoke and grime, it stands brooding, ever silent, ever sullen; it is a place of the damned, the wonderment of law-abiding men who hap to pass it by. Beyond the sounds of the teeming river, beyond the noise of forge and hammer, beyond the regular haunts of men, it is like a secluded bee-hive, when the workers are all within. No one hears the hammering, no one hears the sawing, pounding, dinning, breaking, singing, chanting, praying of all of those therein, save the unambitious workers themselves. For it is a penal institution. Grim-visaged men, with loaded gun, stalk through its ringing halls, while haunting faces peer out from behind steel bars. The tread of many feet is hard, in step, on the hardened floors, as the men file to their places, like trained dogs cringing before their masters; the thump of many hammers is like a dreadful funeral march for the lost; the chant of many a tune is heard, in the time of rest, as the only cheerful note issuing therefrom. And above all is the old familiar human smell.