The Grenada sentinel. [volume] (Grenada, Miss.) 1868-1955, 1915-07-09
CHAPTER XVlII-Continued.

1t had an overwhelming effect upon
the. l had been very heal death. Sui.
eide must have ended the struggle in
which l was engaged, had not this
knowledge Of actual and unpublished
crime come to ease my conscience.
John Scoville was worthy of death.
and, being So, should receive the full
reward of his deed. | need hesitate
no longer.
That night l slept. But there came
a night when l did not. After the pen.
atty had been paid and to most mems
eyes that episode was over, | turned
the first page of that volume of slow
~retribution which is the doom of the
man who sins from impulse, and has
the recoil of his own nature to face
relentlessly to the end of his days.
Seville was In his grave. was alive.
Scoville had shot a man for his money.
had struck a man down In my wrath.
Scoville's widow and little child must
face a cold and unsympathetic world,
with small means and disgrace rising,
like a wall, between them and social
sympathy. If no between them and
the actual means of living.
divers future faced him untouched.
No shadow lay across his path to him
der his happiness or to mar his
chances.
The results were unequal. | began
10 see them so, and feel the gnawing
that deathless worm whose raw
Sges lay waste the breast, while hand
ind brain fulfill their routine of work.
dations of life mistaken.
suffered as only towards suffer. |
held on to honor; | held on to home;
held on to Oliver, but with misery
for my companion and a self-contempt
which nothing could abate. Each time
l mounted the bench | felt a tug al
my arm as of a visible, restraining
presence. Each time | returned to m
home and met the clear eye of Oliver
beaming upon me with its %ever-grow
ing promise of future comradeship,
experienced a rebellion against my
W happiness which opened my eye!
to my own nature and its inevitable
iuo Si'C uP A''S "
yield my honors. make a full confes
sion and accept whatever conse
quences 1t might bring. | am a prou'
man, and the latter alternative was be
yond me. l could forego pleasure
travel, social intercourse, and evel
the com%panionship OF the n being /
whom all my hopes centered. but
~D,Il MT 80 Dav ou-p x-clttiOp pac
from the judges bench to the felon'
cell. There | struck the immovable-
the impossible.
I decided in one awful night of tt
nunciation that | would send Olive
out of my life.
The next day | told him abrupt
hurting him to spare myself . e.
that l had decided after long and mi
ture thought to yield u his desire fc
Journalism, and that would start hi
in his career and maintain him In
for three years. If he would subscrit
to the following conditions:
They were the hardest a loving
Their ever imposed upon a dutiful ar
loving son.
First, he was to leave home immet
ately within a few hours
fact.
Second, he was to regard all rel
tons between us as finished; we we
to be strangers henceforth In eve
particular save that Of the money O
legation already mentioned.
Third. he was never to a~cknowledl
this compact, or to cast any slur up
the father whose reasons for this q
parently unnatural conduct were qui
disconnected with any fault of his
any desire to punish or reprove.
Fourth, he was to pray for his
ther every night Of his life before
slept.
Was this last a confession? Had
meant II to be such? If so, 1t miss
its point. 1t awed but did not fright
him.
I had to contend with his compul
lions. as well as with grief n q
NAV. 1t was an hour OF struggle
his part and Of implacable resoluti
on mine. Nothing but such hardn'
on my part would have served me.
Had | faltered once he would hs
won me over, and the tale of my sic
less nights been repeated. | did
falter. and when the midnight stre
rang through the house that nj
It separated by its peal a sin-oeciou'
hut human past from a future a
with solitude and bereft OF the
p~ossession 10 retain which my sin
been hidden.
I became a father without a son
lonely and as desolate as though