Williams news., 1915-09-09
CHAPTER xviII-continued.


 It had an overwhelming effect upon me. had been very near death. Sui eide must have ended the struggle in which was engaged, had not this knowledge of actual and unpunished crime come to ease my conscience. John Scoville was worthy of death, and, being so, should receive the full reward of his deed. I need hesitate no longer.
 That night I slept. But there came . night when did not. After the pen alty 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. Scoville was in his grave. I was alive. Scoville had shot a man for his money. had struck 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 wall, between them and social sympathy, if not between them and the actual means of living.
 Oliver's future faced him untouched. No shadow lay across his path to hin der his happiness or to mar his chances.
 The results were unequal. L began to see them so, and feel the gnawing of that deathless worm whose rav- 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 unshaken.
 suffered as only towards suffer. held on to honor; held on to home: I held on to Oliver, but with misery for my companion and self-contempt which nothing could abate. Each time mounted the bench I felt tug at my arm as of visible, restraining presence. Each time returned to my home and met the clear eye of Oliver beaming upon me with it's ever-grow- ing promise of future comradeship, I experienced rebellion against my own happiness which opened my. eyes to my own nature and it's inevitable demand, I must give up Oliver, or yield my honors, make full comics sion and accept whatever conse- Quences it might bring. I am a proud man. and the latter alternative was be- yond me. I could forego pleasure. travel. social intercourse, and even the companionship of the one being in whom all nay hopes centered. but I could not, of 5my own volition, pass from the judges bench to the felon's cell. There I struck the immovable- the impassabIe. sa-
 I decided in one awful night of re- nunciation that I would send Oliver out of my life.
 The next day I told him abruptly .. hurting him to spare myself ;. :. that had decided after long and ma ture thought to yield to his desire for journalism, and that would start him in his career and maintain him in it for three years if .hefweuld subscribe to the following cehditions:
 They were the hardest loving fa- ther ever imposed upon a dutiful and loving son.
 First, he was to leave home fmmedi- ately :. within few hours, in fact
 Second, he was to regard all rela- tions between us as finished; we were to be. strangers ,henceforth in every particular save that of the money ob- lgation already mentioned
 Third, he was never to acknowledge this compact, or to cast any slur upon the father whose reasons for this ap- parently unnatural conduct were quite discenneeted with any fault of his or , any desire to punish or reprove.
 Fourth,,f he was1 to pray for his ia ther every night of his life before he slept. yssfs' aQ 9Jo e3g11 4,i 4, Was thfs Hast iaTconfession? Had meant tito be fsuch?' If so, it missed its point. It aWedobd did not frighten him. s. '<s2 :.
 had to conterd with his compunc- tions. as we'll as with grief and dis may. .It,wass ar. hour of struggle on : bis partoand sof tmnIacable resolution on mine. Nothing but such hardness : on mysp part lwonld have served me, E.; g,Had ltfa'teEed once he would have won me over, and the tale of my sleep less nights been repeated. did not falter,- and when the midnight stroke rang thfough the house that night it separated By it's peal a sin-beclouded but human, past from future arid !. with solitude and bereft of the one possession to retain which my sin had been hidden. .i.ir a.sass- ns ,v~ became father without a son-as lonely and as desolate as though the separation between us were that of the grave had merited and so weakly summed e c
 But I was not yet satisfied. How could I insure for myself the extreme punishment which my peace demand ed, without bringing down upon me the full consequences refused to accept. r, gs4r.y.-