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Chapter XXVII. In prison.
The cells were all crowded; so the two friends were chained in a large
room where persons charged with trifling offences were commonly kept.
They had company, for there were some twenty manacled and fettered
prisoners here, of both sexes and of varying ages,--an obscene and noisy
gang. The King chafed bitterly over the stupendous indignity thus put
upon his royalty, but Hendon was moody and taciturn. He was pretty
thoroughly bewildered; he had come home, a jubilant prodigal, expecting
to find everybody wild with joy over his return; and instead had got the
cold shoulder and a jail. The promise and the fulfilment differed so
widely that the effect was stunning; he could not decide whether it was
most tragic or most grotesque. He felt much as a man might who had
danced blithely out to enjoy a rainbow, and got struck by lightning.
But gradually his confused and tormenting thoughts settled down into some
sort of order, and then his mind centred itself upon Edith. He turned
her conduct over, and examined it in all lights, but he could not make
anything satisfactory out of it. Did she know him--or didn't she know
him? It was a perplexing puzzle, and occupied him a long time; but he
ended, finally, with the conviction that she did know him, and had
repudiated him for interested reasons. He wanted to load her name with
curses now; but this name had so long been sacred to him that he found he
could not bring his tongue to profane it.
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