"Well," he said, turning rather lazily toward the fire, "it’s nothing like this." "But,"--Elizabeth looked up suddenly with the eagerness of a new idea,--"can’t you get her out on bail--isn’t that what it’s called? Can’t you get some kind of document, some writ?--yes, that’s it." She spoke with pleasure because she had found a word with a legal sound. "Get a writ. Surely you are a lawyer clever enough to get her out. I always thought that any one could get out of prison if he had a good lawyer. The papers all say so." "You get in prison once and see," said Marriott. "Mercy, I expect to be in prison next!" Elizabeth exclaimed. "Prisons! We seem to have had nothing but prisons for a year or more. I don’t know what started it--first it was that poor Harry Graves, then Archie, and now it’s Gusta. And you talk of them and John Eades talks of them--and I had to see them one night taking some prisoners to the penitentiary. I’d never even thought of prisons before, but since then I’ve thought of nothing else; I’ve lived in an atmosphere of prisons. It’s just like a new word, one you never heard before,--you see it some day, and then you’re constantly running across it. Don’t you know? It’s the same way with history--I never knew who Pestalozzi was until the other day; never had heard of him. But I saw his name in Emerson, then looked him up--now everything I read mentions him. And oh! the memory of those men they were taking to the penitentiary! I’ll never escape it! I see their faces always!" "Were they such bad faces?" "Oh, no! such poor, pale, pathetic faces! Just like a page from a Russian novel!" The memory brought pain to her eyes, and she suffered a moment. Then she sat erect and folded her hands with determination. "We might as well face it, Gordon, of course. I just can’t go; you see that, don’t you? What shall we do?" "You might try your Organized Charities." His eyes twinkled. "Don’t ever mention that to me," she commanded. "I never want to hear the word. That’s a page from my past that I’m ashamed of." "Ashamed! Of the Organized Charities?" "Oh, Gordon, I needn’t tell you what a farce that is--you know it is organized not to help the poor, but to help the rich to _forget_ the poor, to keep the poor at a distance, where they can’t reproach you and prick your conscience. The Organized Charities is an institution for the benefit of the unworthy rich." Her eyes showed her pleasure in her epigram, and they both laughed. But the pleasure could not last long; in another instant Elizabeth’s hands fell to her lap, and she looked at Marriott soberly. Then she said, with hopeless conviction: "I just can’t go, Gordon."