Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1915-05-13
CHAPTER xvlIl-cOutiuued.

ChAP En- ANlit-ContinuSu-
1t had an overwhelming effect upon
me. | had been very near death. Sui
eide must have ended the struggle in
which | vas 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knowledge of actual and unpublished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 1 slept. But there came
a night when | 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
lretribution which is the doom of the
imam who sins from impulse, and has
ethe recoil Of his OWN nature to face
relentlessly to the end of his days.
Scoville 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 not 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
to see them so, and feel the gnawing
of that deathless worm whose raw
ages lay waste the breast, while hand
and brain fulfill their routine of work
as though all were we'll and the foun'
dations of life mistaken.
| suffered as only towards suffer. ]
held on to honor; l held on to home;
l held on to Oliver, but with misery
for my companion and "a s~elf-contempt
which nothing could abate, Each time
| mounted the bench | felt a tug al
my arm as of a visible, restraining
presence. Each time | returned to my
home and met the clear eye of Oliver
DCdn1llS uDOu n6 Will 10 SNS 0Ao"
ing promise of future ~comradeship,
experienced a rebellion against my
own happiness which opened my eyes
to my own nature and it's inevitable
demand. | must give up Oliver, Of
yield my honors, make a full comics
sion and accept whatever conse
quences 1t might bring. | am a proud
man, and the latter alternative was be
yond me. I could forego pleasure
travel, social intercourse, and evel
the companionship of the n being il
whom all my hopes centered. but
could not, of my own volition, pas
from the judges bench to the felon'
cell. There | struck the immovable-
the impossible.
decided in one awful night of re
nunciation that I would send Olive
out of my life.
The next day / told him abrupt,
hurting him to spare myself
that had decided after long and ma
ture thought to yield to his desire TO
journalism, and that I would start hin
In his career and maintain him in !
for three years If he would subscrib
to the following conditions:
They we're the hardest a loving ia
Their ever imposed upon a dutiful an
loving son.
First, he was to leave home immed
ately F. within a few hours.
fact.
Second, he was to regard all rel;
lions between us as finished; we wer
to be strangers ~henceforth in ever
particular save that of the money oil
legation already mentioned.
Third, he was never to acknowledge
this compact, or to cast any slur upo
the father whose reasons for this a
parently unnatural conduct were quit
disconnected with any fault Of his {
any desire to punish or reprove.
Fourth, he was to pray for his I
Their every night of his life before /
slept.
Was this last a confession? Had
meant it to be such? II so, 1t misst
its point. 1t awed but did not frighte
him.
had to contend with his compun
tions. as well as with grief and dl
may. 1t was an hour Of struggle
his part and Of implacable ~resolutit
on mine. Nothing but such hardne
on my part would have served me.
Had l faltered once he would ha'
won me over, and the tale Of my slice
less nights been repeated. did n
falter, and when the midnight stroI
rang through the house that mig
1t separated by its peal a sin-becloud
but human past from a future az
with solitude and bereft Of the O
possession to retain which my sin b
been hidden.
became a father without a son
lonely and as desolate as though t