“You haven't got much heart,” said Van Bibber, finally. “You're a pretty poor sort of a burglar, I should say.”
“What's the use?” said the man, fiercely. “I won't go back—I won't go back there alive. I've served my time forever in that hole. If I have to go back again—s'help me if I don't do for a keeper and die for it. But I won't serve there no more.”
“Go back where?” asked Van Bibber, gently, and greatly interested; “to prison?”
“To prison, yes!” cried the man, hoarsely: “to a grave. That's where. Look at my face,” he said, “and look at my hair. That ought to tell you where I've been. With all the color gone out of my skin, and all the life out of my legs. You needn't be afraid of me. I couldn't hurt you if I wanted to. I'm a skeleton and a baby, I am. I couldn't kill a cat. And now you're going to send me back again for another lifetime. For twenty years, this time, into that cold, forsaken hole, and after I done my time so well and worked so hard.” Van Bibber shifted the pistol from one hand to the other and eyed his prisoner doubtfully.
“How long have you been out?” he asked, seating himself on the steps of the kitchen and holding the revolver between his knees. The sun was driving the morning mist away, and he had forgotten the cold.
“I got out yesterday,” said the man.
Van Bibber glanced at the bags and lifted the revolver. “You didn't waste much time,” he said.
“No,” answered the man, sullenly, “no, I didn't. I knew this place and I wanted money to get West to my folks, and the Society said I'd have to wait until I earned it, and I couldn't wait. I haven't seen my wife for seven years, nor my daughter. Seven years, young man; think of that—seven years. Do you know how long that is? Seven years without seeing your wife or your child! And they're straight people, they are,” he added, hastily. “My wife moved West after I was put away and took another name, and my girl never knew nothing about me. She thinks I'm away at sea. I was to join 'em. That was the plan. I was to join 'em, and I thought I could lift enough here to get the fare, and now,” he added, dropping his face in his hands, “I've got to go back. And I had meant to live straight after I got West,—God help me, but I did! Not that it makes much difference now. An' I don't care whether you believe it or not neither,” he added, fiercely.
“I didn't say whether I believed it or not,” answered Van Bibber, with grave consideration.
He eyed the man for a brief space without speaking, and the burglar looked back at him, doggedly and defiantly, and with not the faintest suggestion of hope in his eyes, or of appeal for mercy. Perhaps it was because of this fact, or perhaps it was the wife and child that moved Van Bibber, but whatever his motives were, he acted on them promptly. “I suppose, though,” he said, as though speaking to himself, “that I ought to give you up.”