He waited until the door had closed upon the visitor, and then he took the letter from the envelope. There were only a few lines of writing.

Dear Johnny, I hope you are not going to be very much upset by the news I am telling you. Marney is marrying Major Floyd, of Toronto, and I know that you’re big enough and fine enough to wish her luck. The man she is marrying is a real good fellow who will make her happy.

Johnny put down the letter on to the ledge, and for ten minutes paced the narrow length of his cell, his hands clasped behind him. Marney to be married! His face was white, tense, his eyes dark with gloom. He stopped and poured out a mugful of water with a hand that shook, then raised the glass to the barred window that looked eastward.

“Good luck to you, Marney!” he said huskily, and drank the mug empty.

2

Two days later, Johnny Gray was summoned to the Governor’s office and heard the momentous news.

“Gray, I have good news for you. You are to be released immediately. I have just had the authority.”

Johnny inclined his head.

“Thank you, sir,” he said.

A warder took him to a bathroom, where he stripped, and, with a blanket about him, came out to a cubicle, where his civilian clothes were waiting. He dressed with a queer air of unfamiliarity, and went back to his cell. The warder brought him a looking-glass and a safety-razor, and he completed his toilet.

The rest of the day was his own. He was a privileged man, and could wander about the prison in his strangely-feeling attire, the envy of men whom he had come to know and to loathe; the half madmen who for a year had been whispering their futilities into his ear.

As he stood there in the hall at a loose end, the door was flung open violently, and a group of men staggered in. In the midst of them was a howling, shrieking thing that was neither man nor beast, his face bloody, his wild arms gripped by struggling warders.

He watched the tragic group as it made its way to the punishment cells.

“Fenner,” said somebody under his breath. “He coshed a screw, but they can’t give him another bashing.”

“Isn’t Fenner that twelve-year man that’s doing his full time?” asked Johnny, remembering the convict. “And he’s going out tomorrow, too!”

“That’s him,” said his informant, one of the hall sweepers. “He’d have got out with nine, but old Legge reported him. Game to the last, eh? They can’t bash him after tomorrow, and the visiting justices won’t be here for a week.”

Johnny remembered the case. Legge had been witness to a brutal assault on the man by one of the warders, who had since been discharged from the service. In desperation the unfortunate Fenner had hit back, and had been tried. Legge’s evidence might have saved him from the flogging which followed, but Legge was too good a friend of the wardens – or they were too good friends of his – to betray a ‘screw’. So Fenner had gone to the triangle, as he would not go again.

He could not sleep the last night in the cell. His mind was on Marney. He did not reproach her for a second. Nor did he feel bitter toward her father. It was only right and proper that Peter Kane should do what was best for his girl. The old man’s ever-present fear for his daughter’s future was almost an obsession. Johnny guessed that when this presentable Canadian had come along, Peter had done all in his power to further the match.

Johnny Gray walked up the steep slope for the last time. A key turned in the big lock, and he stood outside the gates, a free man. The red-bearded head warder put out his hand.

“Good luck to you,” he said gruffly. “Don’t you come over the Alps again.”

“I’ve given up mountain climbing,” said Johnny.

He had taken his farewell of the Governor, and now the only thing to remind him of his association with the grim prison he had left was the warder who walked by his side to the station. He had some time to wait, and Johnny tried to get some information from another angle.

“No, I don’t know Jeff Legge,” said the warder, shaking his head.