There is something sinister in the suggestions conveyed by the long, silent tiers of grated iron doors, something that strikes terror into the stoutest hearts.
A trusty carried her name to Beard and returned at the end of five minutes with the information that the prisoner was willing to see her.
As if further to rasp her refined sensibilities and shock her, she was escorted into a little side room and subjected to a thorough search at the hands of a stout, impassive matron.

To Josephine Burden it seemed an unnecessary humiliation and she shrank inwardly from contact with those rough, though nimble hands.
Being unaccustomed to the peculiar etiquette of prisons, she was unable to appreciate how necessary is the precaution of searching all visitors.
Even with the exercise of the utmost care, it is impossible to prevent the smuggling of weapons and other contraband to the prisoners.
Nothing to arouse the suspicion of the matron was found on Miss Burden and she was escorted to the tier on which Beard was confined.

As she passed up the winding iron stairs and down the long corridors, catching glimpses of human faces peering anxiously through the grating of their cells, she could not help a feeling of pity for the poor wretches confined like wild animals in their iron cages.
To the ordinary curiosity seeker the spectacle is one which leaves a feeling of depression that abides with one like a frightful nightmare prolonged through the hours of wakefulness.

What then must be the emotions of those, who, visiting the prison for the first time, behold one who is near and dear to them peering helplessly, with that look of mute appeal that is ever present in the eyes of unfortunate humans deprived of liberty, from behind the interposing bars of a gloomy cell?
The first flash which Josephine Burden obtained of the man she had come to visit, produced a feeling of horror not unmixed with revolt at the relentless cruelty of the steel bars through which she discerned his haggard face.

Beard's form, dimly outlined against the steel door at the end of a long corridor, seemed to have gathered to itself the wan light that filtered through a narrow window at the right of the aisle, and taken on a gray, misty aspect, wraith-like and terrifying.