Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1913-04-01
THE JUST AND THE UNJUST

to face the situation alone, but an
other life was bound up with him;
hegwould drag her down in the ruin
that had oVertaken him, and when
il was all past and forgotten she
would remember-the horror of 1t
would fill her days.
On that night, as on many another
North retraced step by step the ugly
path that wound its tortuous way
from McBride's back office to the cell
in which he-John North-faced the
gallows But the oftener he trod this
path the more maze-lilSe it became,
until now he was hopelessly lost in
it's intricacies: discouraged, dazed,
confused, almost convinced that in
some blank moment of lost identity
it was his hand that had sent the old
man on his long last journey. As
Evelyn Langham had questioned, so
now did John North: IF not |, then
who did murder Archibald McBride?'
In a vain search for the missing
handy-man General Herbert had
opened his purse wider than North or
even Evelyn realized. There seemed
three possibilities in the instance
OF Montgomery. Either he knew
McBrides murderer and testified
falsely to shield him; or else
he knew nothing and had been
hired by some unknown enemy to
swear North into the penitentiary;
GRAND the third possibility seemed
not unlikely-it was he himself that
had clambered over the shed roof
OF 20. Ii ifo nd rnt inc In Nld
chant.
North turned on his cot, and his
thoughts turned with him from Mont
gomery to Gilmore, who also, with
uncharacteristic cowardliness, had
fled the scene of his illegal activities
and the indictment that threatened
him anew. What was the gamblers
part In the tragedy? He hated
North; he loved Marshall Langham's
wife. But neither of these passions
shaped themselves into murderous
motives. Langham himself furnished
| food for reflection and speculation.
| Evidently in the most dire financial
| difficulties, evidently under Gilmore's
domination, evidently burdened with
some guilty knowledge-bu there was
no evidence against him; he had
| creditably accounted for himself on
| that Thanksgiving afternoon, and
| North for the hundredth time dis
missed him with the exclamation:
Marsh Langham murderer? Inn
possblel"
| The first cold rays of light, an
| nouncing the belated winters dawn,
touched with gray fingers the still
grayer face of the sleepless prisoner.
| Out of the shadows that they coined
came a vision of Evelyn Langham.
| And again for the hundredth time
North was torn between the belief
| that she, by her testimony, might
| save him and the unconduerable de-
! termination to keep from Elizabeth
| Herbert the knowledge of his affair
with Langham's wife. Better end his
worthless existence than touch her
! fair life with this scandal. But of
what was Evelyn Langham thinking
| during the days of his trial? What
if she should voluntarily break her
! silence? Should he not send for her.
There was sound at his door North
started to his feet, only to see the
fat, round face of the deputy sheriff
as he came bringing the morning 3
hot coffee and thick buttered bread.
The town bell was ringing for 8
| O'Clock when the deputy sheriff again
appeared to escort him into court.
and as they entered the room North
saw that ii was packed to the doors.
His appearance won moment of op-
oppressive silence, then came the
| shutting of feet and the hum of
whispered conversation.
At the back of the room sat Mar
shall Langhafn. He was huddled up
in a spiint- bottomed chair a deputy
had placed for him at one end Of the
last row of benches Absorbed and
aloof. he spoke with no fae; he rarely