I did not falter;
and when the midnight stroke rang through the house that night, it
separated by its peal, a sin-beclouded but human past from a
future arid with solitude and bereft of the one possession to
retain which my sin had been hidden.
I was a father without a son--as lonely and as desolate as though
the separation between us were that of the grave I had merited and
so weakly shunned.
And thus I lived for a year.
But I was not yet satisfied.
The toll I had paid to Grief did not seem to me a sufficient
punishment for a crime which entailed imprisonment if not death.
How could I insure for myself the extreme punishment which my
peace demanded, without bringing down upon me the full
consequences I refused to accept.
You have seen to-day how I ultimately answered this question. A
convict's bed! a convict's isolation.
Bela served me in this; Bela who knew my secret and knowing
continued to love me. He gathered up these rods singly and in
distant places and set them up across the alcove in my room. He
had been a convict once himself.
Being now in my rightful place, I could sleep again.
But after some weeks of this, fresh fears arose. An accident was
possible. For all Bela's precautions, some one might gain access
to this room. This would mean the discovery of my secret. Some new
method must be devised for securing me absolutely against
intrusion. Entrance into my simple, almost unguarded cottage must
be made impossible.
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