"Then," he declared as I finished, "you may rest easy as to this
man's right to receive a sentence of death."
I could not trust my ears.
"I know from personal observation," he proceeded, approaching me
with a firm step, "that he is not only capable of the crime for
which he has been convicted, but that he has actually committed
one under similar circumstances, and possibly for the same end."
And he told me the story of that night of storm and bloodshed,--a
story which will be found lying near this, in my alcove of shame
and contrition.
It had an overwhelming effect upon me. I had been very near death.
Suicide must have ended the struggle in which I 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 a night when I did not. After the penalty had been
paid and to most men's eyes that episode was over, I 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.
I 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.
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