The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1902-10-25
A Knave of
Conscience
BY FRANCIS LYNDE.
Copyright 1900, by Francis Lynde.)
CHAPTER XXIV.

SA P"A'y GU Ia
hams adjourned to the veranda.
Griswold and the Raymers were the
only guests, and in the marshalling
of chairs Griswold was skillful
enough to cut Charlotte out of the
group and so secure her for himself.
At the dinner table the talk had
turned upon the pivotal point of the
strike, but that subject was coming
to be pretty well threshed out, and
on the veranda Charlotte spoke of
the wind-blown incident of the after
noon and of the castaway on Oak
island.
"It was terribly reckless thing
in the Sprite," said Miss Farnham.
Now next to being exalted as a
demigod by the woman of his choice
man loves best to have her believe
him fearless. So Griswold dismissed
the matter lightly.
"What is man for?" he asked.
~But as for that, the danger isn't
worth mentioning"
''You may think so, but Gertrude
and I did not. We stood up here on
the veranfa and watched you, going
and coming. Gertrude says I pinched
her black and blue grabbing her and
saying: ooh, she's gone!' when the
scud or a big wave would hide you"
Here was q small admission which
no mere human sympathy could ac-
count for, and Griswold pinched him
self black and blue in the ecstasy of
it. 1t was coming, slowly, perhaps,
but surely, and the name of it was
love.
"But think of it," he said, willing
to make that string vibrate some
more; "thinll of how you and Miss
Gertrude would have shone in the
borrowed eifulgence of me if | had
been capsized. The Morning Argus
would have had you out to identify
the remains, and
ooh, please hush!" she said, and
her hand was on his arm; where
upon he went obedicntly from the
grewsome to the matter-of-fact.
"Really, there wasn't any danger
worth speaking Of; and the fellow
was glad enough to be picked up, I
assure YOU"
"Who was he?" she asked.
enc one whom you know; man
named Grii1in-a summerer, I fancy"
81 do know him." she asserted.
And then: 81 don't like him."
Griswold was both puzzled and
curious.
"Nlay I ask how and why?-how
you came to meet him and why you
don't like him?"
She was silent while one might
count score, and when she spoke
her rejointcr was Il half reluctant
question. ...=..
81 wonder if I might dare to tell
you about it?''
81 have been hoping that the time
would come when you would dare to
tell me anything"
She passed over the implication
and went on, following out her own
thought.
"It is rather dreadful, and I
haven't told anyone about my part
in it; that is. not anyone but this
Mr.. Griffin, and he had a right to
ask she said; and from this as n
beginning she told him the story of
the bank robbery in New Orleans,
and of her part in the apprehension
of the robber. ...
Griswold's lips were dry and there
was an invisible hand clutching at
his throat when she came to the
end. but he made no sign.
"They arrested him in st. Louis,
you say?"
eyes; but he escaped again."
He moistened his lips to say: II
didn't hear of that mean l didn't
read of it in the papers,"
"Nor did l." she admitted. "This
Mr.. Griffin told me-"
"Then he is a-a-"
"A detective; yes. 1t seems that
he came to the conclusion that a
woman had written the letter to Mr.
Galbraith. He took the Belle jules
passenger list and sought out every
one of the women on it till he came
here and found me. l was sorry
but l had to tell him what 1 knew"
"Of course. But why should 20,
be sorry?"
''How can you ask! Is it so light [,
thing to help ever so little to SCI
snare for the poor fellow!"
Griswold's laugh was almost harsh
81 shouldn't waste any sympathy OF
him if were you. He is hardened
criminal, by his own admission t,
you"
''No, he was not that" she said
quickly. 81 understood him bette
than that-better than 1 have mad
you understand him. He was not
hardened criminal"
Griswold's blood. which had bee,
slowly turning to ice in his veins, be
gan to thaw out again at that.
"Then you don't condemn him ut
terly? You are willing to admit tina
his own conscience may have acquit
ted him?"
81 am very sure that it did; o,
at least. am sure that his ow
point of view was so obscured b
what he had suffered that he coul
not rightly see the guilt of the thin
he had DONE"
But you saw the guilt of it?"
How could I help seeing it?"
''True. There is no excuse TO
him"
81 shouldn't say that. There ma
be many excuses for him"
"But no Justification" He trie
i hard to make the saying of it a
impersonal abstraction, succeedin