THE HEART OF A GIRL.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXX, Issue 3539, 1 June 1912, Page 5

THE HEART OF A GIRL.

BY HENRY FARMER.

Author of “The Money-Lender.” “I2a, Quiltry Street,” “Bondage,” etc. (Published by Special Arrangement.) COPYRIGHT—ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

CHAPTER VIII, (Continued.)

The individual may have a long memory, but the general public has a short one. Where the general public were concerned, the Hasted bank robbery had been consigned to the limbo of forgotten things, though an unexpected, belated development, proclaimed by a sensational newspaper headline, would be enough to drag it forth again.

Men would think for a moment, and say “Of course !” Then they would recall the case more or less vaguely. “The fellow,’s name was Stanmore or Stan-something. What was tne sentence? Five or ten years? He was engaged to me married, wasn’t he? Didn’t she faint in Court, or something like that? A shop-girl, wasn’t she?’’ But there was no oblivion for the man in the prison cell—he could not consign memories to a limbo. Every hour ,every day, bit memories more deeply into heart and soul—as acid bites into metal. There was no brutal warders at Stilchester gaol. The governor was a former army officer and a gentleman. But prison regulations were prison regulations. Under the strain of these — the monotony, the long hours of solitary confinement and the lack' of intellectual distraction—Hilary Stanmore was eating out his heart, sometimes a prey to most terrible depression, .sometimes to mental irritation that goaded him almost to the verge of madness, when lie was compelled to fight hard against an insensate. craving to tear his bedding and wreck the meagre furniture of his cell. Practically twenty-three out of every twenty-four hours were spent in solitary confinement, the one hour being spent in taking exercise in a prison yard along a mechanically-pattern-ed-out asphalt path, j. Day in and day out—much the same. And not to know—walled off from the outside world. Not to know what was happening to the woman he loved, how she was faring in the battle for existence, handicapped by a cadging sponge of a father and an egotistical invalid mother. The words contained in her one letter haunted him—“My love and faith will be yours always ; but I may not be able to keep my promise—for the sake of others.” It was not a definite statement; but it was none the less torturing. Sometimes as he tossed sleeplessly on his bed Hilary Stanmore gnashed his teeth Instinctively he associated Michael Thorne with those words, the man who had made much money, who, hard upon his first financial success, had gone straight to Queenie and asked her to marry him, as fate would have it, on the very evening that lie, Stanmore, had won her consent, her love already being his. What news would her next letter bring him ? Four months to wait! There is a paradoxical saying among prisoners that days go quickly but months slowly in prison. Was she already married? He pictured her home as it was known to him. In what strain would he write to her? And he was innocent. Before God he was innocent!

The silent-shod warder on nightduty, peering through the spy-hole in the cell door, heard him groan like a man in the agony of nightmare, and the gnashing of teeth. But lie must play the man. That was his resolution when the prison hell jangled out its morning call at six o’clock, and lie thanked Cod for its note that gave .him permission to quit his bed. For a prisoner must not quit his bed at night and try to work off his agony by pacing his cell. It is a breach of discipline, and a breach of discipline means loss of marks, and loss of marks counted against remission. Half an hour later the bell was jangling again. Then the parade for exercise, and an hour’s shuffling in a prison yard along a maddening patterned track. Back to his cell. Breakwast, a pint of wishy-washy tea and eight-ounce loaf. Then work, stitching the heavy canvas into mail-bags. Dinner at half-past eleven. More work. Supper at five. After work had been collected—skilly and another eight-ounce loaf. Eight o’clock, lights out, and Stanmore was again lying .on a bed of thorns. But he must play the man—if only ho could retain his sanity, keep down this growing, mad, irisenate craving to smash, tear, and curse, to batter his head and hands against the walls. He must not reproach her ! Must not J ho selfishly unjust! Her suffering! must be as' great and as terrible as his own. Nothing that he should write must add to it.. He wanted to see her, look on her face and into her eyes'again, have his arms about her. But at best, be would bq only permitted a twenty-minutes’ interview—a double grille between, a warder present. Wliat would it profit either of them ? Would it not only add to the sum of their torture and misery.

i Then Stanmore cursed Michael ! Thorne, cursed him instinctively and intuitively, though no facts were known to him. But 'his brain was disordered. Lying on his back lie reached out his hands suddenly, and they closed about an imaginary throat And tho warder, wearing “sneaks,” who slid the shield covering the spyhole, heard C. 1006-10 laugh and chuckle.

Still the man’s disordered brain worked distortedly. Tl)e past recurred—the night of the outrage and robbery, every detail vivid as actuality. The half-brother, whom lie had believed dead; and then into the vivid vision, conjured up by his disordered brain, there stepped once more the phantom figure of Michael Thorne.

“Thank God!” The prison bell was jangling again. Six o’clock. Another day had commenced officially. He was shuffling again, a drab-coloured, arrow- spattered figure, along the patterned-out track, another poor devil in front and another behind him, hut so widely spaced apart that whispered conversation was impossible. Lights were out again. He would write and tell her that he understood; that it were better she should not come to see hirn.

But, God! how weak it seemed to thus cave in to fate, circumstance, or whatever men chose to call the mysterious rulings of destiny. And he was innocent, innocent, innocent! What was the God of Justice doing? He shook Iris fists into the darkness and cursed, and a little foam bubbled round the corners of his twitching mouth. He was going mad; lie told himself that he was going mad! What a weak, childish tiling to do! But lie was innocent, and he had been sentenced to ten years’ penal servitude. He made a reckoning. He had not yet served four months—four months the third of one year. And the woman he loved, whom lie had been on the eve of marrying, the house already partly furnished for her, and she buying her trousseau, had practically told him that circumstances threatened to he too much for her—that she might have to marry for the sake of others. He sprang front his plank bed and found himself beating the wall with his clenched hands. God dr-liver Michael Thorne into his hands! It was [Michael Jliorae who was at the bottom of all this. The night patrol was beyond earshot. . . • The prison bell was ringing again. Another official day had dawned f° r Hilary Stanmore. He told himself tha. it was only the ringing of the bell that had staved off insanity. He cursed himself for a weak fool and a selfish one; yet he shivered, afraid of himself, when he thought of tin* next night to come. That day the chaplain paid him a short visit and spoke conventional platitudes that goaded him— did not strengthen or console. All very well to speak of,heaven. But men and women only lived their lives once on this earth. And lie was innocent, innocent, innocent; Round and round and round like an ever revolving wheel twisted Stanmore’s thoughts. Lights out again! On the morrow he would he permitted to write a letter. He would tell her he understood the strain and the pressure put upon her; that in any case he had no right to hold her to her promise made under stress of emotion and shock; that it would never enter his soul to charge her with infidelity. He would write that the knowledge of her love and faith would he a source of strength and not of weakness to him

But he groaned and gnashed his teeth as he fashioned out the letter lie would write on the morrow.

And then again the phant-om figure of Michael Thorne intruded, so real, so vivid, that Stanmore jumped from his bed, and took him by the throat accusing him of robbing him of the woman he loved, of being at the bottom of the mystery that had cent- him to prison—took him by the throat, hurled him to the floor, knelt on his chest, and' tightened his grip on his throat.

Lights were up. A whistle was screaming. ■Uniformed men rushed into the cell. C. 106-10, cursing like a madman, had a warder under him, and was trying to strangle life out of him. W hen they got him off. the warder's face was a bluish color and. consciousness had left him. And so it came about that Hilary Stanmore, in addition to punishVnent cell and No. 1 diet—lib of bread per diem, with water —was deprived of his privilege of writing a letter and receiving a. reply, and of being paid a visit, besides losing remission marks. So it came about when the Governor of Stilchester Gaol received a letter from Queonie Price, asking for news and the reason why she had not heard from Stanmore, an. official communication was despatched to her, informing her that Hilary fStamnore, C. 106-10, had been deprived of these privileges in consequence of a serious and unprovoked assault on a prison warder. (To he continued daily.)