Show I 1 aniva C D I 1 idiocies 9 10 clea r 1014 1914 a 41 S xo 20 CHAPTER continued lie iio was waa in no better mood than myself to encounter insult and what had bad been a 0 simple difference between us flamed into a quarrel which reached its culmination when he mentioned olivers name with a taunt which the boy for all his obstinate clinging to his journalistic idea did not deserve dea ervo knowing my own temper I 1 drew back into the hollow lie followed me I 1 tried to speak lie he took tho the word out ot of my mouth this may havo have been with the intent of quelling my anger but the tone was rasping and noting this and not his words my hand tightened insensibly about the stick click which the devil or john scoville had put in my hand did he zoo BOO this or was he prompted by some old memory ot of boyish quarrels that bat he should give utterance to that quick sharp laugh of acornl scorn I 1 I 1 shall never know but ore ere the pound hail had ceased the stick was whirling over my head bead there came a crash and he be fell my frie freehill hill my aly blendl next moment the earth seemed too narrow the heavens too contracted for my misery that lie he was waa load dead that my blow had killed him I 1 never doubted for an instant I 1 know knew it as wo we know the face of doom when once it has risen upon us never never again would this lump of clay which a few minutes before had tilled filled the hollow with shrillest shrill fibril est lest whistling breathe or think or speak ile ho was dead dead dead 1 and IT I 1 What wasl the name which no man hears unmoved no amount of repetition makes easy to tho the tongue or welcome to the ear earl tho the name which I 1 hail heard beard launched in full forensic eloquence so ao many times in accusation against the wretches I 1 had hardly regarded as being in the same human class as myself rang in my ears as though intoned from the very mouth of hell I 1 could not escape it I 1 should never be able to escape it again though I 1 was waa standing in a familiar scene ft a scene I 1 had known and frequented from childhood I 1 tell felt myself as isolated from my past and BS as completely set apart from my follows as aa the shipwrecked mariner tossed to precarious foothold on hla his wave dashed rock I 1 forgot that other criminals existed in that one awful moment I 1 was in my own eyes the only blot upon the universe tho the sole inhabitant of the now new world into which I 1 had plunged the hurld of crime the world upon which I 1 bad sat in judgment before I 1 know knew what brikei aroki tho the spell god knows r all I 1 can say aay Is that drawn by borne other will than my own I 1 found my glanco traveling up lip the opposing bluff till at its top trained between the ragged wall and towering chimney of spencers polly folly I 1 saw the presence I 1 had dreaded the witness who was to undo rue me it was a woman a woman with a little child in hand bund I 1 did not see her face ace for she aha was just on the point of turning awa from the dizzy ve verse vee e bit bat nothing could have been plainer than tho the silhouette which these two made against tho the flush of that early evening sky As AH long as I 1 could catch a glimpse of this womans comans fluttering skirt as she retreated through the ruins I 1 stood there self convicted above the man I 1 had slain alaan staring up at that blotch of fi shining bining sky AY which was as the gate of hell to me inc not till their two figures had disappeared and it was quite clear agalli again did the tha instinct of self preserve tion return and with rith it tho the thought of flight but where could I 1 fly iya no spot in the whole world was secret enough to conceal me now I 1 was wa a marked man better ta stand my ground and take the consequences than to act the cowards part and slink away like those hose other men ot of blood I 1 had so sa often sat eat in judgment upon had I 1 but followed this impulse I 1 had haa I 1 but gone among my follows shown them the mark of cain upon my forehead and prayed not tor for in fulgence dul gence but punishment what days t gnawing misery I 1 should havo have been spared the horror ot of what lay at my feet drove mo me frona from tho the hollow As my steps tell fell mechanically into tho the trail down which I 1 had bad come coico lu in innocence and anci kindly purpose only a few minutes before a startling thought shot through my benumbed mind the tha woman had s no haste in her turnings there bd bad been a naturalness la jn her movement a dignity find and a which spoke of asso not cihock what it sho she had bad not what it if my deed was na as yet unknown nl might I 1 not have time for feih for what I 1 did aut a ut stop to think I 1 just juat pressed on I 1 to myself lot let providence de clde it I 1 meet anyone any ono before I 1 reach my own wn door my lily doom Is 13 settled it I 1 do not and I 1 did not As aa I 1 turned into the 0 aine e from the wine reine I 1 heard a sound I 1 far nr down the slope but it was too distant to create apprehension and I 1 wont went cal on oa forcing mystik into ny y usual leisurely gait tt 1 I only to gain some control over my own emotions before coming under oscars eye that sound I 1 have never understood it could not have been scoville since in the short time which had passed he be could not have fled bed from the point where I 1 heard beard him last into the ravine below ostrander lane but it if not he be who was it or it it was he and somo other hand threw hla his stick across my path whose was this hand and why have we never beard anything about it it to la a question which sometimes floats through my wind mind but I 1 did not give it a thought then I 1 was within sight of home and olivers possible presence and all other dread was as nothing in comparison to what I 1 felt at the prospect ot of meeting my boys eye my boys boya eyel my greatest dread then and my irly greatest dread still in my terror of it I 1 walked as to my doom the house which I 1 had left empty I 1 found empty oliver had not yet returned tho the absolute stillness of the rooms seemed appalling instinctively I 1 looked at the clock it had stopped not ot at the minute I 1 do not say it was at the but near very near thu the time when fro from m in 12 innocent man I 1 became a guilty guilt y one appalled at the discovery I 1 fled to tho the front opening the door I 1 lo 10 looked out nota not a creature in sight and not a sound to be heard tho the road was as lonely and seemingly as forsaken as tho the houie homo had time stopped here too wore the world and its interests at a pause in horror of my deed for a moment I 1 believed it then more natural sensations inte and rejoicing at this lack or 0 disturbance where disturbance meant discovery I 1 stepped inside again rewound the clock and sat eat down in my own room my own room was it mine any longer its ita walls walla looked strange the petty objects of 0 my dally daily handling unfamiliar the change in myself infected everything I 1 saw I 1 might have been in another mans house for all connection these things seemed to have with me or my life like one set act apart on an unapproachable shore I 1 stretched hands bands in vain toward all that I 1 had known and all that had been of value to me but as tho the minutes passed I 1 began to lose loaa this feeling hope which I 1 thought quite dead slowly re revived dyed nothing had happened and perhaps nothing would men alen hail had bec bees killed before and the slayer passed unrecognized why might it not bo be so in my case it if the woman continued to remain silent it for any reason she ehe had not witnessed the blow or the striker who else was there to connect me with an assault committed a quarter of a mile away no one knew or of the quarrel and it they did who could bo be so daring as to associate one of my name with an action so brutal A judge slay hla fri friend enill I 1 it would take evidence of a very marked character to make even my political enemies believe that As the twilight deepened i v rose from my seat and lit the gas I 1 must not be found skulking in the dark then I 1 began to count the ticks measuring off the hour if ic thirty minutes more passed without a rush from without I 1 might hope it if twenty if ten then it was fivel five I 1 then it was ahl the gate had clanged to they were coming I 1 could hear bear steps voices a loud ring at the bell I 1 moved slowly toward the front I 1 feared eared tho the betrayal which my ashy face ace and trembling hands might make agitation after the news was to bo be expected but not before I 1 so I 1 left the hall ball dark when I 1 opened the door and thus decided my future for in the faces of the small crowd which blocked the doorway I 1 selected nothing but commiseration and when a voice spoke and I 1 heard olivers accents surcharged with nothing more grievous than pity I 1 realized rII zed that my secret was as yet unshared an seeing that no man suspected acted me i tore fore bore to declare TOY my guilt to anyone this sudden restoration from sound less leas depths into the pure air of respect and sympathy confused me and be yond yon J the words worda Kil killed ledl I 1 struck down by the bridgam brid gal I 1 heard little till slowly dully like the call ot of a bell issuing from a smothering mist I 1 caught the sound of a name it struck my ear car and gradually it dawned upon my that another man had been fir arrested rested for my crime and that the safety tho the reverence and the commiseration that were so BO dear to me ma had been bought at a price no man ot of honor might pay hut but I 1 was no longer a man of honor I 1 was a 0 wretched criminal swaying above a gulf g ulf ot of infamy a x which I 1 had illeen ecea others swallowed but had never dreamed or of being ingul engulfed fed I 1 never thought of letting myself go not at this crisi snot while slilla my heart was warm with its resurgence into the oll old ue itie and so BO I 1 let pats this opportunity for confession afterwards it was too late or too late to my cemon benior judgment my first real awakening to the be extraordinary tra ordinary horrors of my position was waa when I 1 re allied zi that circum clr cum stances were likely to force me into presiding over the trial of the man scoville I 1 feigned sickness only to realize that my place would be taken by judge grosvenor a notoriously prejudiced man if he sat eat it would go hard bard with tho the PT T urier wrier and I 1 wanted the prisoner acquitted I 1 had bad no grudge against john scoville ot of course I 1 wanted to save him and it the only help I 1 could now give him was waa to sit alt as judge upon hla his case then would I 1 alt aft as judge whatever mental torture it involved sending tor for mr dlack black I 1 asked him point blank whether in face of the circumstance that the victim of this murder was my best friend he would not prefer to plead hla his case before judge grosvenor Oro avenor lie he answered no that he be had more confidence in my equity even under these circumstances than in that of my able but headstrong colleague and prayed roe me to get well ile he did not say eay that he be expected me on this very account to show even more favor toward his client than I 1 might otherwise have done but I 1 am sure that he be meant it and taking his attitude as aa an omen ome I 1 obeyed his injunction and was soon well enough to take my scat beat upon the bench what men saw facing them from the bench was an automaton wound up to do so BO much work each day the teal feat ostrander was waa not there but an unseen presence at the bar undergoing trial side by side with john scoville tor for a crime to make angels weep and humanity bide alde its head hypocrisy but the days went by and the inexorable hour drew nigh for the accused m mans anis release or condemnation circumstances cum stances were against him so was his bearing which I 1 alone understood it if as aa all felt it was that of a guilty man it was so because he be had been guilty in intent it if not in tact fact ile he had bad meant to attack algernon etheridge Etherl dge he had run down the ravine for that purpose knowing my old friends whistle and envying him his watch or why his foolish story of 0 having left his bis stick behind him but the sound of my approaching steps higher up on the path had stopped him in and sent him rushing up the slope lope ahead of me when he came back after a short circuit of the fields beyond it was to find his bis crime forestalled and by the very weapon he be had thrown into the hollow as he be went scurrying currying by ile he had meant to attack etheridge Etherl dge it was the shock of the discovery of the body heightened by the use he be made of it to secure the booty thus thrown in his way without crime which gave him 0 al A x AA he was dead dcarl dead dead and 17 11 what was wa 17 ahn bang dog look we all noted that there were other reasons that the place recalled another scene or of brutality in which intention had been followed by act I 1 did not then know it was waa sufficient Buna clent to we me then that my safety was secured by his own guilty consciousness and the prevarications into info which it led him instead of owning up to the encounter ho he had so barely escaped he be confined himself to the simple declaration of having baying heard voices somewhere near the bridge which to all who know the ravine appeared impossible under tho the conditions named yet for all the incongruities and the failure of his counsel to produce any definite impression by the prisoners persistent denial ot of having ehlt tied tho the stick or even of having carried it into dark hollow I 1 expected a verdict in hla his favor indeed I 1 was so confident of it that I 1 suffered less during the absence of the lory jury than at any othor time and when they returned with an air of solemn decision which pro unanimity of mind and a ready verdict i wais waa so prepared tor for hla his acquittal that for the first time since the opening of tle the trial I 1 felt myself a being of flesh and blood with human sentiments and hopes and it was guilty when I 1 awoke to a full realization of t ysias batt this eri entailed tor for I 1 must have lost consciousness for a minute though no ona seemed to notice the tha one fact staring me in tho the face was that it would devolve upon me to pro nourice hla his sentence upon me archibald ostrander an automaton no longer but a man realizing to the full hla his I lart art in this miscarriage of justice chaos confronted me md a contemplation of it I 1 tell fell ill ebow strange BB lt it mthr byear I 1 had cai th thought little of this possibility previous to this moment I 1 found myself upon the brink of this now new gulf before the dizziness of my escape from the other had fully passed do you wonder that I 1 recoiled sought to gain time put off delivering the sentence from day to day I 1 had sinned sinned irredeemably but there aro are depths of infamy beyond which a man cannot go I 1 had reached that point what saved me A now discovery and the loving sympathy ot of my so son oliver one night a momentous one to we me he came to toy my room and closing tho door behind him stood with his back to it contemplating me in a way that startled me what had happened what lay behind this new and penetrating look this anxious and yet persistent manner I 1 dated dared not think I 1 dared not yield to the terror which must ollow follow thought terror blanches the cheek and my cheek must never blanch under scrutiny never never so long as I 1 lived father the tone quieted me for I 1 knew from its gentleness that he was hesitating to speak more on hla his own account than on mine you are not looking well this thing worries you I 1 hute to see you like this Is it just the loss loaa of your old friend or or ile he faltered not knowing how to proceed cee d sometimes I 1 think he recommenced that you dont |