No man may serve a term of imprisonment in a modern prison and return to freedom on the same moral plane as he left it. A man may fall, but he may rise again, provided he is saved from that lifelong branding which a penal prison leaves upon its victim. Innocent or guilty the modern prison system is an invention which must rob its victim for ever of his confidence, his self-respect, almost of his hope. It is an institution set up to protect the free citizen, and terrorize the wrong-doer into better ways. And it does neither of these things. Instead, it pours upon society, daily, a stream of hopeless, hardened, bitter creatures, who, through its merciless process, have abandoned what little grip they ever had upon their moral natures, and drives them along the broad, ill-lit road of crime. Instead of being the deterrent it is supposed to be, it is the worst creator of crime known to civilization.

These were some of the reflections forced upon young Frank Burton after twelve months' bitter experience in Alston Penitentiary. And now, with each passing moment of his new freedom, the truth of these painful observations was more and more surely brought home to him. An innocent man, he had come out into the light of freedom, dreading and shrinking before every eye that was turned in his direction. His self-confidence was shaken. All his old trust and belief in the goodness of the life about him seemed to have melted into dark and painful suspicion, and, for the time at least, he was forced into those darkened purlieus which belong to the world of crime. The light was unendurable.

He had changed terribly from the buoyant lad he had been. He had seen so much, thought so much during those twelve long months, that now he was weighted down by a maturity that belonged to twice his years.

He knew he could never go back to the old life. That he had long since made up his mind up to. More than that, he could not accept benefits from those who belonged to it, whom he had known and loved. Even Phyllis, for all her ardent affection, she, too, belonged to a life that was wholly dead.

The future, his future, lay in his own two empty hands. Those whom he loved, and those whom he hated and despised could have no part in it. Were it otherwise he felt that to see Monica would be to bring him into contact with Hendrie, and such contact could only stir in him all the evil influences of the prison, influences from which it was his determination to escape.

Phyllis? Little Phyllis?

No. She must go, too. The band of the criminal had sunk too deeply into his soul. She must be left free. No such contamination must be brought into her life. His love for her was far too great for him to submit her to such a dreadful disaster as marriage with an ex-convict.

He had thought of all these things before, he thought again of them now. They were rarely absent from his mind.

The moment he read Monica's letter he knew what he intended to do. And it was the same when he hungrily devoured the words of devotion he received from Phyllis. Dealing with Monica's letter had been simple enough. With Phyllis's it was a far different matter. He wanted her to understand. He knew he must hurt her, but he felt that by presenting all his feelings to her, she, with her wide understanding, would appreciate and accept his decisions.

The whole journey from Alston to Fieldcoats, in the old-fashioned rumbling "stage," was given up to these hopeless meditations of an outcast. And he was glad of it. He was glad that he had the time to think of the letter he must send this girl at once.

It was dark when the twinkling lights of Fieldcoats, the nearest town where he would take train for Toronto, came into view, and he was glad of that friendly obscurity. His shrinking from the light was no morbid feeling. With his close-cropped head the story of his recent past was open for every one to read.

He did not complete the journey to the final halting place of the stage, but dropped off it in the lower and more obscure part of the town. It was here that he meant to begin his new life. A cheap, clean bed was all he desired, just a place where he could rest between sheets, and write his long letter to Phyllis. He wanted something solid on four legs. Something which would not remind him of the hammock he had learned to hate.

He found the place he required without difficulty. It vaunted the title, "The Alexandra Hotel," and its beds, in cubicles, were let out at twenty-five cents and ten cents a night. It was a mere "dossing house," but that was quite a matter of indifference. He felt he had no right to squeamishness.

He booked one of the higher priced cubicles and ascertained that it was clean. Then, with a sigh of resignation, and some squaring of the shoulders, he prepared to face the curious eyes of the derelicts who haunted the "office" of the establishment.

To face even these, with his close-cropped head, Frank found no light task, but he knew that for weeks yet he must keep himself hardened to the consciousness of his prison brand. The only thing possible was a desperately bold front, a front that would intimidate the curious, and, if necessary, he must follow it up with all it threatened.

So he entered the room and calmly looked about him. He was big, spare, and enormously powerful. His hard blue eyes deliberately sought for any eye that might be turned in his direction. His trouble was wasted. He forgot that these poor creatures, lounging upon the hard Windsor chairs, reading papers, or staring hopelessly before them while they smoked, were derelicts like himself. Nobody gave him the slightest heed, and he was left to seek out his obscure corner where he could write in peace.

Once assured of his immunity, Frank began his letter, and promptly became completely lost to his surroundings. The long-pent thoughts of the past year flowed passionately as he attempted to show the girl he loved all that which lay deep down in his simple heart.

It was not, perhaps, the convincing letter of a deep thinker. It was not a letter full of the refinement of logical argument. He wrote just as he thought, and felt, and saw, with a mind tinged by the dark hues of his own sufferings and the sufferings of others.

He told her, simple creature that he was, of all his love for her. He told her of the aching heart which this definite parting left him with, and, in the same breath almost, he told her that he regarded it as his sacred duty to shield her from contamination with a disgrace such as his. He forgot that where a real woman's love is concerned, duty, and perhaps any other scruple is willingly flung aside.

His simplicity carried him into deeper water, for he wrote long and ardently of his own future, a future conceived, and to be founded upon all he had seen and experienced in prison. Again he forgot the wide mind of the girl he was writing to, and blindly believed that the sincerity and honesty of his motives must appeal to her.

It was altogether a headlong sort of letter. He wrote as he thought and felt, and scarcely paused for a word or phrase. The gist of it was a yearning for a sort of sublime socialism. He could not longer bear the thought of self-seeking. He had seen so much of the disastrous results of it that he felt and knew that the whole process of it was utterly wrong. The prisons were filled with its results.

Those things, he said, had started his train of thought, and, with each passing day, his eyes had become more fully opened.

All the old ambitions, he told her, had been rooted out of him for ever. They were the natural impulses of a heart and mind all untutored, and far too immature for the real understanding of life. He had desired wealth and place in the world, and it had seemed good to him to so desire. Nor was it to be wondered at. Such desires had been inspired by honest motives, if, perhaps, selfish. They were just the first teachings of life until – it presented the reverse side of the picture.

He had been shown the reverse of the picture, and it had come in time. For twelve months he had gazed upon it and learned its lessons. For twelve months he had groped amid the cobwebs of life and sought among the darkened corners. That which he had discovered there had plainly shown him that, for him, past and future ambitions were divided by a gulf that could never be bridged again. In future his life would be cast on the side of the helpless and struggling, on the side of the oppressed, and those who were less endowed for the battle of life.

The battle of life? There should be no battle. There never was a battle intended. Why should there be? Was there not more than enough to go round? It was only because the laws of man permitted accumulations to the individual and so reduced more than half the world to a position bordering on starvation, a condition which lay at the very root of all crime. The old belief in the survival of the fittest was a dead one. It applied to simple physical conditions, not to the right to enjoy a fair share of those blessings a beneficent Creator had provided for the benefit of all. Think of it, he appealed, think of the king of beasts cornering all the food upon which his species depended to support life. Picture one proud brute standing over a hoard of rotting flesh, flourishing his tail and snarling defiance at a crowd of starving creatures of his own kind. Would they permit it? Would they leave him in possession? No, they would set upon him in their numbers, and, in desperation, they would tear him limb from limb.

Brotherhood and Equality! That was to be the keynote of his future. Henceforth all his power, all his heart should be flung into the only cause that could make the world endurable.

So he wrote to this girl of more than common wisdom, and he told himself she would understand. He told himself that though their lives could never come together again, at least he would possess her sympathy.

It was long past midnight when Frank's letter was folded in its cheap envelope and addressed. But its writing had done him good. It had been inspired by a big heart, if little wisdom, and he felt that he had taken his first step upon the new road opening out before him.

There were still stragglers in the office when he finally retired to his cubicle. Some were sleepily drunk, after an evening spent in "cadging" drinks among the low-class saloons in the neighborhood. Some were merely utterly weary with a long day of vain searching for some means of livelihood. All were unkempt and tattered, and most of them dirty.

These were some of the poor creatures belonging to the ranks of those, who, in his lofty ideals of the work that lay before him, Frank hoped to range himself on the side of. In his youthful blindness he failed utterly to recognize the workings of the definite laws of compensation. He missed entirely the most glaring fact of life. It passed him by that the majority of these were able-bodied men who had wilfully thrown away the chances which life never fails to offer, for the indulgence of those selfish passions which in his heart he abhorred.

That night he slept the fitful sleep of a man unused to his surroundings, but he was sufficiently refreshed when the hour appointed for arising in such places arrived. He turned out quite ready to face all that the day might bring forth. He knew that he must endure many trials of patience and feelings. But he intended to face them with a brave heart.

Ten cents was all he allowed himself for his breakfast. He required only sufficient to sustain life, nor did he obtain more for the money. Then he made his way to the railroad depot, forcing himself to a blindness for the attention his appearance attracted. Here he made inquiries as to the train, and booked his passage. The train for Toronto left just before noon, so he purchased a newspaper and sat down in the waiting-hall. He intended to pass the time scanning the advertisements, that he might learn the best means of obtaining employment when he arrived at his destination.

The train was "on time," and, in due course, Frank boarded it. The car he selected was fairly empty. At the far end of it a party of people, evidently a family party, occupied several seats. For the rest five or six men and two women were scattered about its length.

He took his place in the rear seat of the coach, feeling that it was preferable to have no inquisitive eyes behind him. Those who displayed marked attention from in front he felt confident of being able to deal with. But he reckoned without his host.

The first part of his journey was quite uneventful. But at the first important town at which the train stopped several passengers boarded the car. Among them was a man with closely trimmed iron gray hair, and quick, searching eyes that closely scanned the faces of each person in the car.

His stare was not wholly rude. It was the searching glance of a man who is accustomed to studying his fellows, who never fails to do so at any opportunity. He took a corner seat just across the aisle of the car, and on the level immediately in front of Frank. He sat turned so that the whole view of the car came within his focus. Nor was it a matter of more than moments before Frank's cropped head came under his observation.

Frank felt that this was so, although he was studiously intent upon his paper, and, as the fixed contemplation remained, he chafed under it. For some time he endured it, hoping that, the man's curiosity satisfied, he would turn away. But nothing of the sort happened. The stranger's interest became riveted.

Frank felt himself grow hot with resentment. He determined to put an end to it by the simple process of staring the man out of countenance. To this end he looked up sharply, and with anything but a friendly expression in his cold eyes. As their eyes met there was something like a deliberate challenge in the exchange. The man made no attempt to withdraw his gaze, and Frank found himself looking into a clean-shaven, keen, determined face, lit by a pair of hard, satirical eyes.

Promptly the position became more than intolerable, and Frank was driven to a very natural verbal protest. He sprang from his seat and crossed the aisle. Leaning across the back of the stranger's seat he voiced his annoyance deliberately and coldly.

"It seems to me you'll probably know me when you see me again," he said, with angry sarcasm.

The stranger smiled amiably.

"Just depends when I meet you," he retorted, with a meaning glance at the close-cropped hair displayed under the brim of Frank's hat.

A sudden anger lit the boy's eyes at the taunt, and a violent protest leaped to his lips. But the stranger anticipated him.

"Say," he drawled, "sit right down – here. I wasn't meaning offence. What got me looking was you're so like – an old friend of mine. You brought the other on yourself. Won't you sit – right down?"

The stranger's manner was so disarmingly cordial that Frank's heat began to die down. Still, he had no intention of accepting the invitation.

"Maybe you didn't intend rudeness, but that isn't the point," he said deliberately. "I'm not the man to stand rudeness from – anybody."

"Sure," said the other calmly. "Guess that's how we all feel. Say, it's the queerest thing. Guess you're 'bout twenty or so. Just about his age. You're the dead image of – my friend, when he was your age. You got blue eyes and his were gray. It's the only spark of difference. Going up Toronto way?"

Frank nodded. He somehow felt he could do no less, without returning in cold silence to his seat. Somehow he felt that to do so would be churlish, in spite of the fact that he was the aggrieved.

The keen-eyed stranger recognized his advantage in obtaining the admission, and promptly followed it up. He indicated the seat beside him and persisted in his invitation.

"Best sit," he said, with a pleasant smile. "It's quite a long piece to Toronto. I'd a heap like to yarn with you."

The stranger was altogether too much for the simplicity of the other. Besides, there was nothing but amiability in his manner. Perhaps after all he had been hasty, Frank thought. He was so sensitive about the brand of the prison he carried about with him. The shame of it was always with him. Anyway, it could not hurt talking to this man, and it would help pass the time. He allowed himself to be persuaded, and half reluctantly dropped into the seat.

"Say, that's friendly," commented the stranger, with a sharp, sidelong glance at Frank's strong profile. "There's just one thing I got set against this country. It's a hell of a ways between cities. Maybe you don't get that across in England."

"I've never been in England," Frank admitted.

"Ah. Maybe States?"

Frank nodded. And the man laughed.

"The land of Freedom, Graft and Finance."

"Yes, it's an odd mixture," agreed Frank. "It's also a land of slavery. A queer contradiction, but nevertheless true. Three parts of the people are held in bondage to the other fourth, who represent Capital."

The stranger stirred and settled himself. He gazed keenly into his companion's face.

"Guess you were one of the 'three parts,' and found the fourth – oppressive."

Frank shifted his position uneasily. Then with a sudden curious abandonment he spread his hands out.

"Say," he cried, his cheeks flushing, "I don't know what makes me talk to you – a stranger. You're the first man who has wanted to speak to me since – I came out. I know you've spotted my cropped head, so what's the use of trying to deny it. Yes, I've found it, I suppose. But not in the States. Just right here in Canada, where things are much the same. I've just come out of Alston Penitentiary. I was sentenced wrongfully to five years, and now, at the end of one of them they've found out my innocence, and given me a free pardon – for not being guilty."

"A free pardon?" The stranger's eyes were reading his companion through and through.

"Yes, a free pardon for an offence I never committed," Frank went on, with bitter indignation. "It doesn't matter how or where it happened. But the whole thing was worked. I mean my trial, by a man of – well, one of the millionaire class – one of the other 'fourth.' Perhaps you'll understand now why I hated you staring at me."

The stranger nodded sympathetically.

"Guess I'm real sorry," he said.

Frank shook his head.

"It doesn't matter – now. It's done me good to tell – somebody. See." He drew out his prison discharge and showed it to his companion, who read it over carefully. "You don't need to take my word. That'll tell you all you need to know."

The other looked up.

"Frank Smith?" he said.

"Frank Burton's my name. I used the other so as to keep it from folks I didn't want to know about it."

"I see." The stranger was studying the clean cut of the ingenuous face beside him. "And now they'll know – I s'pose?"

"They've found out for themselves." The youngster's blue eyes were shadowed in gloom.

"Ah!" The other glanced out of the window a moment. "And – what are you going to do? Go back to – 'em?"

The gloomy blue eyes were turned away. Frank was staring introspectively down the aisle of the car.

"No," he said at last. "I'm not going back to them." Then he sat up and looked at his companion earnestly. "To go back would mean to become one of the other 'fourth.' The ranks of the submerged three-quarters is my future. I've learned a lot in the last twelve months. Say, have you ever been inside a prison."

The stranger's sharp eyes lit with a brief smile. It was not a really pleasant face with its narrow eyes; nor was it a pleasant smile. He shook his head.

"I've seen 'em – from the outside. I'm not yearning to get a peek inside."

Frank looked disappointed.

"It's a pity," he said. "You see, you won't understand just how I see things. Do you know, the prisons are just full to overflowing with folks who'd be free to-day – if it weren't for the existence of that other 'fourth'? Oh, I don't mean they've been deliberately put away by the wealthy folk. I'm just learning that one of the greatest causes of all crime, is that, under present conditions, there isn't enough to go round."

The stranger's smile had become more encouraging.

"And the cure for it is – Socialism, eh?"

Frank started. Then he nodded.

"I suppose that's what folks would call it. I call it Brotherhood and Equality."

"Go a step further," said the other. "It's that 'fourth,' we are talking about, who get rich and live on the efforts of the worker whom they sweat and crush into the very ground over which their automobiles roll. Put it in plain words, man. It is the worker, the poor wretch that just manages to scrape existence by grinding toil, who feeds the rich and makes possible the degrading luxury of their lives. And when the first hope of youth gets swamped by the grind of their labors, and they see their equally wretched wives and hungry children going without the barest necessities of life, and before them lies nothing but the dreary road of incessant toil, with no earthly chance of bettering themselves, then they grow desperate, and help to fill those hells of despair we call penitentiaries. That's what you've realized in prison."

Frank stared at the man. The force of his manner was such as to carry absolute conviction of his personal feelings upon this matter, feelings which also lay so deep in the heart of the ex-convict. He wondered at the strange chance which had brought him into contact with a man who shared these new feelings and beliefs of his. Could it be – ?

"You believe that way, too?" he asked eagerly.

At that moment a waiter from the dining-car entered the coach.

"First call for dinner! First call for dinner!" He passed down the car issuing his invitation in high, nasal tones.

The stranger fumbled in his waistcoat pockets, and, as the waiter passed, he produced his card, and held it out toward his companion.

"Say," he observed, lapsing once more into his more genial manner. "Guess you'll be yearning for a billet when you get along to Toronto. Just keep that by you, and when you're needing one, come and look me up. We're always needing recruits for our work. I'll take it kindly if you'll eat with me right now."

Frank took the card and read the name on it —