But for the moment, when Sheila Macklin had made her last statement, it seemed that every atom of thought and all ability to consider matters logically were drained out of the man's mind. That mind was perfectly blank. What the girl had said seemed mere sound, sound without meaning. He could not grasp its significance. And yet he knew it was tragic. It was something that had made the girl what she was. It explained all Tunis had been unable heretofore to understand about Sheila Macklin. That timidity, that whispering shyness, the shrinking from observation and from any attention, were all explained. She had suffered persecution and punishment, harsh and undeserved, that made her recoil from contact with other more fortunate people. She felt herself outcast, ostracized, and was unable to defend herself from malign fortune. Gradually Tunis regained his usual self-control. If Sheila had said anything following the bare statement that she had spent two years in the St. Andrew's Reformatory for Women, he had not comprehended it. Nor could he have told how long he sat silent on the bench getting control of his voice and of his tongue. When he did speak he said quite casually: "And what kind of a place is that--er--school, Miss Macklin?" "You can imagine. It harbors the weak-minded, the vicious, and the unfortunate runaway girls, thieves' consorts, and women of the streets. It is, I think, a little like hell, if there really is such a place, Captain Latham." The poignancy of expression in her voice and words made the man tremble. And yet she did not speak bitterly nor angrily. Her feeling was beyond all passion. It was the expression of a soul that had suffered everything and could no longer feel. That was just it, Tunis told himself. It explained her attitude, even the tone of her voice. She had endured and seen so much misery and heartache that there seemed nothing left for her to experience. "Can you bear to tell me what misfortune took you to that place?" he asked gently, yet fighting down all the time that desire to roar with rage. "Why do you not say 'crime,' Captain Latham?" she asked in that same low, strained voice. "Because I know that crime and you could not be associated, Miss Macklin," he said hoarsely. At that she began suddenly to weep. Not aloud, but with her hands pressed over her eyes and her shoulders, shaking with long, shuddering sobs which betrayed how the horror of past thoughts and experiences controlled her when once she gave way. Tunis Latham could have behaved like a madman. That berserk rage that had seized him in the restaurant welled up in his heart now. He gripped the back of the bench till the slat cracked. But there was no opponent here upon whom he could vent his violence that he longed to express.