The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-05-02

possession of the policy and the accident. She
would receive the money as a strange dispense
ton in her children's behalf. Such was the
conclusion of days of diseased elaboration.
sAs for the crime, said he, "God will not be
hard on a poor fellow for forestalling his decree
a few weeks or days"
ing a robbery? The question gave him pause.
He lodged it at first, for his mind had taken the
fatal bent-arguing that the actuaries had calcu-
lated all risks and had enhanced the companys
premiums for this special kind. His act would
not affect the average. But IN vain he tried
thus to still his conscience. So, atlast, he faced
1t boldly and said:
let me not play the hypocrite to myself
Would | leave Kitty and the children destitute
rather than lay a tax on a joint stock company"
He laughed in desperate fashion at the jeer into
which his thought had run.
AS yet, however, he had not determined; but,
waking and sleeping, the current of his thought
bore always on the advantage of realizing his
accident insurance.
Then came a night when he had another agony
and cold sweat and sensation of Sitting. 1t was
a reminder that time pressed. Afterward his
strongest feeling became one of fear lest ne
should die naturally and leave his loved ones
nothing. Now he had come to regard the in
surance money as theirs, and, by a curious per
version of conscience, accused himself of inper-
ling their right and their welfare by his delay.
How to realize? With this question ever closer
he became even more apprehensive of rousing
suspicion by the act 1t must be entirely acct
dental in seeming.
To be run over by the train would be horrible;
the thought of being mangled made him shud-
der. But no other mode seemed SO plausible.
One by one he pondered many other devices,
only to reject them. Over that of drowning he
fingered. To capsize with a sail up, or turn
over with a canoe-the act could be managed
very naturally, very accidentally, but not so the
opportunity. The season was so far advanced
that to go out in a boat would be surprising in
itself. No, the train! this must be-only thus
! cQuld he certainly SQcura his wife and children.
To his morbid fancy suspicion threatened to
arise should his accident policy not seem neg
lected. He placed it IN an out of the way pigeon
hole. into which he then blew dust which set
tied so naturally and thickly that he had q little
thrill of pleasure in his ingenuity.
Then the night was very late. He hurried
over to his quarters and went tobed to cover
and SILVER and lie long awake with wide open
eyes. With despair gnawing at his heart, he
had o host of hideous phantasms before him,
with fingers that pointed to his crushed body
and voices that jeered him with having failed.
Then at last came that deepest sleep from which
one wakes tired and sore.
III.
Bright sunbeams streamed through Becketts
window when he awoke. He sprang up hastily
with a feeling that no time was to be lost, and
looking at his watch found himself late. Dress
ing quickly he turned away, leaving the watch
on the table as he thought of it's value, but
came back from the threshold to put it in his
pocket, struck by the fear that generalization
would be suggested were he found without it.
Then he strobe down stairs. along the streets,
across the long railway bridge, past the town
outskirts and into the wide cutting through the
woods.
In imagination he traced the fight of the ap-
preaching train: now she must be w~histling at
Motion, now putting away from Mapledale, now
| grooming up the mountain grade, now hidden in
the long tunnel. Within a few minutes she
should come into view around the distant curve.
He looked at his watch, and turned back toward
Bastonvale.
A huge longing to see his wife aud children
once more came over him, and even a mad
yearning that Kate should know the reason of
his death. If only she could understand, and
not suffer to think of his act. But she would
understand, he told himself, finally, after the
long pain of living was past for her too-up
there-up above that cloudless sky. But where
should he be theng Would God forgive himl he
questioned wildly. or was this act to separate
him from love for all eternity?
An! Altar in the air grew a sound from low
pulsation to a trembling, and rumbling, and
rushing and at last a rafting noise. To his in
strangely from the usual. Now the clatlsr over
the joints Of the rails could be heard, and he
listened for the Charmed and warning whistle.
'In a few %instants." thought he, lis the end! On
which of those ties ahead shall my foot be then,
and where shall my body lie quivering after
wardl'
The sound now distinctly near seemed unac-
countably less than that of a train, and differ
| eDC, Uub n0 UOlU HlIuSclI UIldC his struggle against
| his own excitement caused the seeming. Or
were they slowing down? No; he dared not
turn his head! 1t was thrown back, his chin
was raised a little, over the skin of his back
went a premonltory shudder and shiver. Now!
Hoy! Hoy there!"
''Hoyl Clear the track, Mr.. Beckett"
"Roy!n
George turned to see four men desperately
trying to bring their hand car to a stop.
my God, sir" cried Paul Murray, the section
foreman. I'D a SWOro We was over VouD
II thought you were the The checked him
self, further away" he concluded. From his
dead-white face and excessive trembling, the
men supposed him very much frightened at TIE
narrowness Of the escape.
II clean forgot you was a bit deaf, sir" said
Paul. "and just came tearing along"
Where's the trainf' asked Beckett, family.
"Off the track about five miles back, sir. A
bad smash-up, but nobody hurt. We're going in
to Bastonvale Tor more jack-screws.'
They offered to carry him to the village, but
he refused. AS he walked in he thought people
looked at him strangely. Had they heard Paul
method was closed against him! But the truth
was that the people were struck by the change
in his appearance. His face was gaunt and
tragic. the tense strain had made him very bag
gard, his neighbors thought they had never seen
a man look SO i'll. Some stopped him with sym
pathy, from which he escaped with II muttering
about sleepless nights.
Before evening he was utterly tired of all his late
emotions, and In his WEAKNESS came with over
towering force the longing to see bis wife and
children again. He must see them! He would
| respite himself for a few days, but still hetold
himself that he was false to Kate and to them in
waiting an hour with a natural death always
imminent.
Then he telegraphed to Kate that he would
come next day, and that night, thinking that
nothing would prevent him seeing his loved ones
again, he fell away to restful sleep and happy
dreams.
Out in the country a driving cloud of snow,
large-fiaked and soft, so filled the air that John
Kennedy could barely make out the outline of
his store across the road from his house, while
from the stores back windows he could see
nothing of the wood piles fifty yards away on
the steamboat wharf. From the wharf he could
see only a few yards of moving water, upon