Hopkinsville Kentuckian. [volume] (Hopkinsville, Ky.) 1889-1918, 1913-12-18
AIS SENTENcE
Story That Rovives an Old Cues.
tion-Ts a Mans Life
His Own7v

ftCllOll OF the phIh.
He walked quickly and yet without
haste. Pretty women bowed and
smiled to him from victoria and lam
daulette, men nodded in the perfume
tory manner Of pal to pal, and Chris
topher Hill responded to each care
fully, courteously, even gaily. Social
amenities must be observed even by
the man condemned to death.
Though an enthusiast at games
Hill had been an idle man up to the
present and yet was not without his
ideals and ambitions; he was young
and well off, and until month ago
had believed himself possessed of SUI
perabundant health.
Above all, though owning few
near relations, he had large circle
Of friends, and there had lately
doomed large on his horizon the girl
with the gray eyes.
He WINGED when he thought of
her. 1t would be bitter enough to
leave it all, God knew, when the time
came. But this last thought was the
first with real power to stab. He
who believed himself invulnerable
realized his hurt now.
He tried to recall the doctors ex-
act words, but instead could only see
the queer scar on the right cheek
as the great man bent over him. 1t
had come, Christopher knew, from
the knife of a native fanatic in India.
His thoughts sprang off at a tan
gent to that country and the last big
elephant he had shot there in the
very nick of time to save his own
life. Better far, as things we're now,
that the elephant had won the tussle.
What we're the doctors exact
words? All, he had them now.
"Six months at most nc
operation possible. Pain? Yes,
fear there may be, must be pain
And the compassion in the kind
grave face, Christopher recalled il
all in strange, impersonal way.
He had almost resented the pity
expressed only by touch and manner
As he left with his death warrant
signed and sealed the doctor.
thoughts followed him.
"Not six months. I'll give hin
so many weeks, and then he'll shoe
himself, poor devili" Which wa
precisely what Christopher Hill hac
determined to do.
lie had always, with the SOUND
mind of the healthy man, condemned
suicide as a phase of insanity. Nov
he saw it placed in new and rela
tive light, and merely as a Fastening
forward of the inevitable.
Mollie, his little sister, would
grieve for him, but there was no one
else, and Mollie had her husband
and small son.
But there was no one else to care
unless perhaps That thought came
again with new and unexpected
stab.
Christopher Hill was not an ire
ligious man. His feelings lay al
the deeper for being unexpressed
Yet had parson stood in front OF
him condemning his present frame
of mind Christopher would have
been genuinely astonished.
A mans life was his own. He had
nothing to be ashamed of, but ia
drag ON six months in hell and then
die in torture was unthinkable. He
had seen men suffer thus before.
Then he turned the corner by the
broad walk and came upon the girl
with the gray eyes.
She was accompanied by maid
carrying some books and leading a
small dog. Hill stopped and spoke
eagerly.
"Are you very busy? Won't you
walk round the gardens once, and lei
me see you homer"
She said word to the maid, who
went ON with the little dog. The
girl turned, and she and Hill went
slowly up the broad walk together.
IL have been changing library
books" said the girl gaily, "and al
last I've got that new one, John
Smith, that everybody is talking of
Have you read it?'
Ha f0road an iuforo.k &I.~l-.... II