People's voice. [volume] (Wellington, Sumner County, Kansas) 1890-1917, 1894-05-18
BLIND JUSTICE.
CHAPTER XIY-CoyTryrrp
BY HELEN i. MATTERS.

- IL "a pei luCHb anu Ills emu
to the utmost limit. | knew that
was actually guilty CT murder if he
died under the test. And the skilled
intelligence that co1id have lifted
the heavy burden from ny shoulders
tarried yet, so that twice | sent
Stephen in search OF Dr Cripps. and
was now awaiting his second return.
With bitter sense Of powerlessness
| felt myself reduced to one cf two
courses; to restore the mans poison
to him. and with it his life, o. to
withhold it, and so inaict on him
death, and, as natural consequence.
on Judith, also
How long, | asked myself impo.
tently, might man writhe in unre-
lieved fortunes not to be surpassed
BY any in Dante's Inferno, and vet
retain life in his racked body? Would
not his resolution BY infnitesimal
degrees give way, and that confess
sion spring to his lips which would
lift him from the pains of purgatory
into the peace OF heaven?
have since thought that it might
have done, had not Stephen been
present to keep alive in him the jeal-
GUS hatred that devoured him And
to this day believe that If Judiths
love had been an ordinary fisherman,
instead of in the likeness of young
Greek god, the Syrian would have
gone his way with that raging devil
unarOused in him, which even
prompted self-slaughter, rather than
the surrender OF her to one so infn-
itelv his superior.
But my blunder in bringing the
two men together was on a par with
ny other mistakes, and, like them,
irreclaimable. And | began to think
that my latest. achievement in en-
gaging the Syrian in duel of wills,
out of which, dead or alive. he must
emerge victorious, was but the big
geSt mistake Of all.
And truly | could not but feel ad-
miratiOn for this wretch (who put
me fOrcibly in mind of the tabled boy
who suffered the fox to knaw at his
heart rather than cry out whose
heroic absence of sound or word
(since once he had taken his resolve)
only impressed the more wildly his
agony upon me, aud yet | sat there
watching like a stone, or a devil.
with the means of relieving it lying
idle to my hand
If he died, would his death be
proof presumptive that Seth Treloar
died in the same way, not from the
effects OF the poison but from the
cessation of it?
Suddenly it struck on NE like a
chill blow that this man had been nv
guest that | had no one to bring
forward as witness that he admins
tered the arsenic to himself. that the
box was even then in my possession.
and, if he were found dead, should
be in precisely the same position as
judith had filled, and possibly found
guilty, as she had been, OF crime
had never committed. Tue. DR..
Cripps l6new the circums stance, but
he could only quote my unsupported
testimony, which would go for moth
ing. And as all these things dawned
upon me | said to myself that verify
the Styrian's revenge upon me, as
upon Judith, would be complete in
deed.
A mans guilt-and very often his
SUGGESTS decided by the way he
rises to an emergency or quails be-
fore it, and | must confess that |
failed before this one, and did not
think or do any one of the hundred
things that an heroic man would
have done easily in my place. just
waited in a sort of sullen stupor for
events to take their course, for Dr.
Cripps to turn up, or for the man to
think better of his suicidal obstinacy,
or for some command from my In
nermost self that l dared not dis
obey, but neither Grips, nor the
Styrian's repentance, nor nv spir-
itual orders arrived, though some.
thing else did, with all the swiftness
OF genuine catastrophe.
A long, convulsive SILVER suddenly
passed through the Styrian's body,
then his head fell forward above the
arms clenched across his heart, and
he was still
Cold as the dead, | gazed, and all
the irrevocableness of my deed
rushed upon me- | knew then the
sensations of the murderer. whose
mana mas IN one moment substituted
death for life, and who stands ap-
palled at the awful image he has
created
Like him, | would have flown from
the sight that will never leave him
more by night nor by day, but an
inward power compelled me, and
making my way to the Syrian, |
threw myself down beside the hud-
died up, stirless figure.
touched his hands, they were ice
his heart and could find no beat;
then an awful sense of his presence.
of being alone with this murdered
spirit, we two apart, and forever
face to face, while heaven and earth
fell away. seized me, and with a cry
in my ears of Where is now thv
brother Abel" fell downwards
across the Styrian's feet ti-
CHAPTER XIV.