Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1909-04-30

self, not of me-"
"Jessica, Jessical" he protested, with
a groan. But in the self torture of her
Qu~estionings she paid no heed.
"Don't you think | suffer? Haven't
borne enough In the months since
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. 1t pierre
ed through the fierce resentment to her
deepest heart. and all her love and pity
gushed back upon her in a torrent
She threw herself on her knees by the
bare cot. crying passionately:
"Oh. forgive me! Forget what | said!
l did not mea It | have forgiven you
a thousand times owe ! never ceased
to love you. | love you now more than
all the world"
at is true" he said, hoarse misery in
his tone. II have wronged you. II |
could coin my blood drop by drop to
pay for the past | could not set that
right. If giving nay life over and over
again would save you pain ] would
give 1t gladly. But what you ask now
is one thing | cannot do. 1t would
make me a pitiful coward. | did not
kill Moreau. That is all l can say to
you or to those who try me-"
"Your life!' she said with dry lips.
at will mean that. That counts SO
fearfully much to me. more than my
own life a 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. sit is like this with me. When
you found me here-the day | 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 fiercely alive now.
And now with my memory has come
back a debt of my past that | never
paid. Y hatever the outcome, for my
souls sake | must settle 1t now and
wipe 1t from the score forever"
She rose slowly to her feet. with a
despairing gesture.
"'He saved Others" she quoted In
q hard voice; himself he could not
saver l once heard a minister preach
from that text at home. 1t was your
friend, the Rev. Henry Sanderson.
thought it a very spiritual sermon
then. That was before | knew what
his companionship had been to YOU"
IF there were any justice in the uni
verse;" she added, 'it should be he
immolating himself now, not you. But
for him you would never be here. He
ruined your life and mine, and l hate
and despise him for a selfish hypo'
critic"
That was what he himself had
seemed to her in those old days. The
edge Of a flush touched his forehead
as he said slowly, almost appealingly:
"He was not a hypocrite, Jessica.
Whatever he was 1t was not that. AT
college he did what he did too openly.
That was his falling, not caring what
others thought. He despised weakness
in others. He thought it none of his
affair. So others were Influenced. But
after he came to see things differently
from another standp6int%when he
went into the ministry-he would have
given the world to undoSt."
MEMS likings are striSige," she said
Because he never had temptations
like yours and has never done what
the law calls wrong you think he is as
noble as you-noble enough to shield
a murderer to his own danger"
"Ah, no, Jessical" he interposed gen
tly. II only said that In my place he
would do the same"
But you are shielding a murderer
she insisted fercely. "You will not ad-
NIT it, but l know. There can be nc
justice or right in that. If Harry San
derson is all you think him. If be
stood here now and knew the whole
he would say 1t was wicked-not brave
and noble, but wicked and cruel"
He shook his head, and the sad
shadow of a bitter smile touched his
lips. "He would not say So" he said