Waterbury evening Democrat., 1908-10-12
t Chapter 2s

own past. He himself had set Hugh's feet on the red path that had pointed him to the shameful terminus. He had gambled for Hugh's future, forgetting that his past remained, thing that must be covered. He had won Hugh's counters, but his own right to be him. self he had staked and lost long before that game on the communion table un- der the painted crucifixion.
 The words he had once said to Hugh recurred to him with kind of awe: ''Put myself in your place? Iawish to God couldv'
 Fate-or was it God?-had taken him at his word. He had been hurled like a stone from catapult into Hugh's place-to bear his knavery, to suffer his dishonor and to redeem the baleful rep utation he had made.
 A step outside the cell, the turning of the key. The door opened, and Jessica, pale and trem bling, stood on the threshold.
 T cannot help it." she said as she came toward him, though you told me not to come. have trusted all the while and waited and-and prayed. But today I was afraid. Surely, sure ly, the man you are protecting has had time enough. Hasn't he? Won't you tell them the truth now?"
 He knew not how to meet the piteous reproach and terror of that look. She had not heard the street preachers declaration, he knew, but even if she had it would have been to her only an echo of the old mooted likeness He had given her comfort once, but this was no more to be, no matter what it meant to him or to her
 "Jessica," he said steadily, "when you came to me here that first day and told you not to fear for me did not mean to deceive you. I thought then that it would all come right But something has happened since then something that makes difference. cannot tell who was the murderer of Moreau. cannot tell you or any one else. either now or at any time" She gazed at him startled. She had sudden conception of some element hitherto unguessed in his makeup something inveterate and adamant. Could it be that he did not intend to tell at all? The very idea was mon- strous. Yet that clearly was his mean ing. She looked at him with flashing eyes.
 "You mean you will not" she ex- claimed bitterly You are bent on sacrificing yourself, then? You are go- ing to take this risk because you think 1t brave and noble, because somehow 1t fits your mans gospel. Can't you see how wicked and selfish it is? You are thinking only of him and of your self, not of me-"
 "Jessica, Jessica" he protested, with a groan. But in the self torture of her questionings she paid no heed.
 Don't you think I suffer? Haven't I borne enough in the months since I married you for you to want to save me this? Do you owe me nothing, me whom you so wronged. whose'-
 She stopped suddenly at the look on his face of mortal pain, for she had struck harder than she knew. It pierc- cd through the fierce resentment to her deepest heart, and all her love and pity gushed back upon her in torrent She threw herself on her knees by the bare cot, crying passionately:
 "Oh, forgive me! Forget what said! l did not mean it. have forgiven you a thousand times over. I never ceased to love you. I love you now more than all the world"
 Tt is true" he said, hoarse misery in his tone. T have wronged you. If could coin my blood drop by drop to pay for the past could not set that right. If giving my life over and over again would save you pain I would give it gladly. But what you ask now is one thing I cannot do. It would make me a pitiful coward. did not kill Moreau. That is all I can say to you or to those who try me-"
 sYour lifer' she said with dry lips. 'Tt will mean that. That counts so fearfully much to me, more than my own life hundred times. Yet there is something that counts more than all that to you.'
 His face was that of a man who holds his hand in the fire. "Jessica," he said, it is like this with me. When you found me here-the day I saw you on the balcony-I was a man whose soul had lost its compass and its bear ings. My conscience was asleep. You woke it, and 1t is fercely alive now. And now with my memory has come back debt of my past that I never paid. Whatever the outcome. for my souls sake I must settle it now and wipe 1t from the score forever"
 She rose slowly to her feet, with despairing gesture.
 "'He saved others" she quoted in hard voice; himself he could not sayev 1 once heard a minister preach from that text at home. It was your friend, the Rev. Henry Sanderson. I tuoueut II very SpIIludI scTmOu then. That was before 1 knew what his companionship had been to you.' [. "Ifthere were any justice in the uni verse" she added. it should be he immolating himself now. not you. But for hi.n you would never be here. He rrinci yorr life and mine, and hate and despise him for selfish hypo crite4"