Her mind was far away, in another city and state; her thought had entered again the gloomy prison which she had visited with Nancy Langham and Malcolm--on a day when a prisoner had intervened to save the Warden's life. The peace of autumn evenings brought no comfort to that place, save it were the mere rest of wearied bodies. A city of itself, it was as alien to that city so near it, of comfortable homes and pleasant people which she had visited, as the deep life of the coal-miner is alien to that of the free hunter who breathes the sweeter air a thousand feet above the other's sunless toil. Outside of those walls folk were eager and merry; inside lights were dim, life itself sluggish and inept; there were sore hearts, sterile hopes, smouldering hatreds, an oligarchy of despotism ruling with slow cruelties, a community of apathy and despair. Since her return from the Langhams she had moved, so it seemed to her, in a kind of sombre dream in which her daily duties were mechanical and involuntary and her only real life that inner consciousness which had writhed and struggled unceasingly. A sense of actual, personal guilt bound her, by a bond stronger than steel, to that unknown prisoner in the Penitentiary, weighing upon her spirit as heavy as a promise to the dead. What should she--what was she bound to do? Which way should she turn? There was Mason's opinion, based upon a long and sensitive intercourse, that the man was no criminal; that, had he been absolved of attempted murder, he could have cleared himself of the baleful association. But that, after all, was only Mason's opinion. He might be wrong. And if so, though the man had not fired the shot, he was a partner in his comrade's iniquity, a party to the greater guilt. An enemy to society, his penalty was just and right. Was she called upon, on such an empty hypothesis, to take upon herself a horrible mantle of notoriety? So she had reasoned, but the self-accusation had remained, not to be argued back by casuistry, a stern visitant that stood insistently before her, pointing the stern finger of denunciation. As she stood by the gate in the dusk, she shivered as though the still cold penetrated beneath her furs. She must tell the truth! Whatever the result, she must disclose the part she had played. She had no thought that this might be accomplished without publicity, or that testimony which might be basis for executive action could be secret. In imagination she pictured herself standing before the same tribunal by which an innocent man had been condemned, telling her story to the impartial and impersonal Law--telling it openly, before all the world!