"It is better as it is--as--as you have decided it to be.

Only I could not let you go thus,--without a word.

There now,--go, Clarence, go.

Please! Don't you see I am behind these bars?
Think of them as the years that separate us, my poor, dear, foolish boy.

Think of them as standing between us, growing closer, heavier, and more cruel and hopeless as the years go on." Ah, well! they had been good bars a hundred and fifty years ago, when it was thought as necessary to repress the innocence that was behind them as the wickedness that was without.