Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1916-02-02

! placed there tonight; white light il
the jury is favorable ana red light II
| otherwise"
Good scheme" acknowledged the
attorney. Ill arrange with the watch
man TO look after the lights, and l sin
| cerely hDpe he will need but one Ian
tern-the white"
For long time after the attorney
departure Black carefully thought over
! the case. searching his mind for the
weak spots in his defense and going
over the strong. damaging points his
prosecutor had made.
Finally the prisoner went to the
window ana stood with his face close
to the heavy iron bars and peered out
into the night.
At s o'clock a wavering white light
appeared in the alleyway. and with
eager eyes he watched it swing back
ward and forward. then stop and re-
main stationary.
The pure white light warmed his
heart-the rumors were favorable.
Humming a lively tune, he turned
away and started gathering together
his books, papers and few belongings
which he would take home with him,
for it would not be long now until he
was free.
The packing finished, he again stroll
ed over tc the window and looked out.
The light had disappeared.
No; there it was. but now a dull,
sullen red.
Precipitation burst from his pores,
and he quivered in every nerve as he
groped his way back to the bed.
The weeks of mental worry, like a
slow poison or a wasting sickness, had
steadily but surely undermined his sys-
tenn, and now when hope, the greatest
tonic of all, had gone he collapsed.
His head was racked with shooting
pains, the straining eyeballs seemed to
be bursting from their sockets, and he
could not think nationally. His mind
was forever going off on some wild,
demOniacal tangent.
His breath came in painful gasps,
he was stifed, suffOcating, and he had
an insane, maddening desire to shrek.
Then came an attack of dizziness. He
tainted.
Slowly the wretched man regained
consciousness.
First there was a restless twitching
of the facial muscles, then the eyelids
quivered and opened.
Mechanically he raised himself on
one elbow, and his dazed orbs peered
around the cell, gradually picking out
-,
lifting of a curtain, came memory, and
what memory!
Like the fantasy of a terrible night
mare, he lived over his past life.
Vague, shadowy forms, people of his
distorted mini victims of his business
career, appeared and swept along in a
gibbering, hooking review.
\ nameless awe came over him as he
reviewed this weird. uncanny assembly
of phantasms. for during the years of
his mad struggle for success he had
never stopped to think of the many he
had ruined, businesses he had wrecked,
and all to further his own ends.
The people who had opposed him
never seemed real; he had thought Of
must be overcome. pushed aside or
crushed.
Even his transactions at the bank
were not those of common theft 1t
was true he had speculated with the
depositors' money, but that was only
high finance. Others did it every day,
only they were not found out, and he
was.
His mind wandered back to the days
Of his childhOOd-of his mother.
How proud she had been of his sue
cess! How she had mothered him and
fused over him even when he was a
full grown up man, and then her death.
How thankful he was that she had
not lived to feel his disgrace, for it
would not be long until he was brand
ed a criminal; then prison, where he
would no longer be man, but a num-
Der. thing in striped clothes.
The hardship of penal servitude did
not worry him as much as that thought
of what life would mean after he had
served his sentence.
He would be a broken, old man, a
jailbird, and even his wealth could not
protect him from ridicule and diStrust.
Then from the inner fastness of his
mind came the thought that he was not
convicted yet and that every man is
assumed TO be innocent until proved
guilty.
Eagerly his mind caught at the words
innocent until proved guilty He re-
peated them over and over in a low,
thoughtful undertone.
A change came over the tortured
prisoner, his body stiffened and his
eyes glittered with a new purpose.
If he should die now before sentence
was pronounced he would not go down
in history as a convicted criminal, but
in the eyes of the law an innocent
man.
He was face to face with two al.
ternativeS-
PriSOn-or-Suicide!