" He stopped, then added, as if the
admission was wrung out of him, "I've been in prison."
"So have I," said Senhouse, "and in Siberia at that. I was there for more
than a year, though not all that time within walls. They let me loose when
they found that I could be trusted, and I learned botany, and caught a
marsh fever which nearly finished me. They wouldn't have me in after that,
being quite content that I should rot in the open. I was succoured by a
woman, one of those noble creatures who are made to give themselves. She
gave me what blood she had left. God bless her: she blessed me."
"It was a woman," said the stranger, "that sent me to prison."
Senhouse, after looking him over, calmly replied, "I don't believe you.
You mean, I think, that there was a woman, and you went to prison. You
confuse her and your feelings about her. It is natural, but not very fine-
mannered. No woman would have put the thing as you have put it to me."
The stranger shifted two or three times under his host's quiet regard:
presently he said, "This is the tale in a nutshell. She was beautiful and
kind to me; she was in a hateful place, and I loved her--and she knew it.
There was a man with claims--rights he had none--preposterous claims, made
infamous by his acts.
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