“I have some money,” said the woman quietly, “and this fortune is put away where no law can touch it. I have fifteen years yet before I shall be fifty-five; more of those years I expect to spend in prison, but after that——” She stopped a moment and chuckled before she added: “After that I presume I shall enter society.” To save himself, the doctor could not help laughing. He was amused, to say the least, at this woman’s philosophy. “You seem to have no fear of results,” he said after a minute. “What was your early training? Were your parents religious?” For once “Big Belle’s” eyes snapped with a hidden fire. He had touched the chord that was most responsive. “I was a country girl like that nurse who was in this morning,” she said, quickly; “I came to the city because my parents could not support me. I was only one of the thousands who are kicked out at an early age to battle with the world’s evils, and oh, how I was tossed and buffeted about! How readily my superiors made a football of me! How willingly women inveigled me into foolish ways, and how quickly and thoroughly they abused me for being inveigled! I was a fresh field daisy, innocent as a lamb, but oh, how gladly men sullied the whiteness of my soul, how eagerly they flattered me and led me astray, and then, when I was as they were, how brutally they served me! There were times when I thought I would gladly die, Dr. Brookes, but there was something in me that kept urging and urging, and at last I turned, as a worm will turn, and yes, I will tell you, my motive was to get even!” The black eyes were scintillating with fury now, and Dr. Brookes almost regretted that he had stirred up such a passion. “I don’t entirely blame you,” he said quietly, “and yet I know that you are wrong. It is better to suffer than to persecute—apart from all religious sentiment, I believe that thoroughly!” “Well, I don’t!” said the woman in a cold, hard voice. “I prefer to take things as they come, Dr. Brookes, and you cannot say that I do not take my punishment philosophically.” They were at one end of a long ward when this conversation took place; five minutes later they were both bending over a patient. “You can take the bandages off now, Belle,” said the doctor, softly. “Poor soul, she is dying and perhaps she will be more comfortable.” “Did you learn her name?” asked the female convict. “No, she came as Mary Jones, which means absolutely nothing. We have wired to the police for further information.” “Well, it will come too late, I’m afraid,” said the woman softly. The patient had breathed her last before she had fairly removed the dressings. Marion Marlowe was standing by a window in Charity Hospital, watching the setting sun just as the “vitriol patient’s” remains were taken to the criminal “dead-house.” Little did she dream what tragedy had been enacted, or how closely connected was her life with this poor creature’s.