The way of the transgressor.
And so it was handed to him at the close of a late fall day — after a long and dreary summer had passed (soon a year since he had entered here).
And he taking it.
And although it was typewritten with no date nor place on the envelope, which was postmarked New York — yet sensing somehow that it might be from her.
And growing decidedly nervous — so much so that his hand trembled slightly.
And then reading — over and over and over — during many days thereafter:
“Clyde — This is so that you will not think that some one once dear to you has utterly forgotten you.
She has suffered much, too.
And though she can never understand how you could have done as you did, still, even now, although she is never to see you again, she is not without sorrow and sympathy and wishes you freedom and happiness.”
But no signature — no trace of her own handwriting.
She was afraid to sign her name and she was too remote from him in her mood now to let him know where she was.
New York!
But it might have been sent there from anywhere to mail.
And she would not let him know — would never let him know — even though he died here later, as well he might.
His last hope — the last trace of his dream vanished.
Forever!
It was at that moment, as when night at last falls upon the faintest remaining gleam of dusk in the west.
A dim, weakening tinge of pink — and then the dark.
He seated himself on his cot.
The wretched stripes of his uniform and his gray felt shoes took his eye.
A felon.
These stripes.
These shoes.
This cell.
This uncertain, threatening prospect so very terrible to contemplate at any time.
And then this letter.
So this was the end of all that wonderful dream!
And for this he had sought so desperately to disengage himself from Roberta — even to the point of deciding to slay her.
This!
This!
He toyed with the letter, then held it quite still.
Where was she now?
Who in love with, maybe?
She had had time to change perhaps.
She had only been captivated by him a little, maybe.
And then that terrible revelation in connection with him had destroyed forever, no doubt, all sentiment in connection with him.
She was free.
She had beauty — wealth.
Now some other —
He got up and walked to his cell door to still a great pain.
Over the way, in that cell the Chinaman had once occupied, was a Negro — Wash Higgins.
He had stabbed a waiter in a restaurant, so it was said, who had refused him food and then insulted him.
And next to him was a young Jew.
He had killed the proprietor of a jewelry store in trying to rob it.
But he was very broken and collapsed now that he was here to die — sitting for the most part all day on his cot, his head in his hands.
Clyde could see both now from where he stood — the Jew holding his head.
But the Negro on his cot, one leg above the other, smoking — and singing —
“Oh, big wheel ro-a-lin’ . . . hmp!
Oh, big wheel ro-a-lin’ . . . hmp!
Oh, big wheel ro-a-lin’ . . . hmp!