less opaque, to have parted a bit to let through a softness.
“Ye can’t help me,” began the voice above again; “ye can’t; nobody can’t. I’m up against the push. It’s this way:
“I left this hell-hole once, left it on parole, and I got throwed back. I got throwed back. Fer why? Fer why did I get throwed back? What do ye think? Fer stealin’? Fer killin’? Fer snuffing a gofe? Fer cookin’ a bull? Guess why. Fer why did I get throwed back?”
The voice had risen clear now, pitched thin like a penny whistle; the questions dropped upon 9009 fiercely insistent. He lay silent, waiting, and at length the questioner, whom he could feel leaning out of his bunk above him, answered himself:
“I got throwed back in this hell-hole,” he said, “fer marrying. Yes,” he repeated drearily; “fer marrying.
“Ye see, I was doing ten years”—the words, long repressed, now came flowing one upon the other tumultuously—“I was doing my ten spot
