“Every Monday she asks for a letter, and, though receiving none, becomes radiant with hope and says: ‘It will come to-morrow.’ The last of the week she is depressed. Sunday she again writes her letter. That has been her life for twenty-six years. Her youthful face is due to her mental inactivity. Aimlessly she does whatever is suggested. The years roll on and her emotions alternate between silent grief and fervid hope.
“This is the male ward. That tall man has been here twenty years. His history sheet says from alcoholism. He went to Alaska, struck gold, and returned home to marry the girl he left behind. He found her insane and began drinking, lost his fortune and then his reason, and became a ward of the State, always talking about his girl and events that happened long ago.
“He is the ‘John’ to whom ‘Esther’ writes her letter.
“They meet every day.
“They will never know each other.”
COLLUSION
By Lincoln Steffens
The sacred door of the Judge’s chambers bolted open and he beheld the light, lovely figure of a woman trembling before him; brave, afraid.
“Oh, Judge,” she panted, but she turned and closing the door securely, put her back against it to hold it shut. And so at bay, she called to him:
“Judge, Judge, can’t I tell you the truth? Can’t I? My lawyer says I mustn’t. He says perjury is the only way. And I—I have done perjury, Judge. So has my husband. And I’ll swear to it all in court when we are under oath. But here where we are all alone, you and I, unsworn, with no one to hear, can’t I tell you the truth?