"No trinkets on the bosom," he went on questioningly, "no lockets, nor crosses, nor reliquaries of saints? Humph!"
"There is," replied Elphinston, "on my breast a bag of satin, in which is a lock of hair--the hair of the woman whom I love. Fellow, do you think I will let you take that, or even fasten your foul eyes on it! Ask me no more; otherwise I will speak to the Governor."
"It is against the rules," said the other, "quite against the rules, yet----"
"Curse the rules!"
"Yet," he said, "so that when you leave us you will give me one, only one of those pieces, I will not insist."
"Leave me," said Bertie, and his voice was so stern that, followed by the turnkey, the man slunk out of the room, and a moment afterwards the heavy door was locked and barred on him.
[CHAPTER XXII.]
DESPAIR!
Left alone at last, he walked up and down the huge chamber, or vault, his mind full of melancholy, heartbroken reflections.
"My God, my God!" he muttered, "what have I done that thus Thou lettest Thy hand fall so heavily on me? What fresh sin committed, that this fresh punishment should be mine! I have lost the one thing I cared for in this life, lost her; now I am incarcerated here in this place of horror, this place where men's existences, even their very names, are forgotten as much as though they had lain for years in their graves; this place which may be my grave." Then, a few moments later, his heart and courage returned to him, and he murmured to himself again: