A close fence should replace the pickets now
surrounding it--a fence with a gate having its own lock.
And this fence was built.
This should have been enough. But guilt has terrors unknown to
innocence. One day I caught a small boy peering through an
infinitesimal crack in the fence, and, remembering the window
grilled with iron with which Bela had replaced the cheerful
casement in my den of punishment, I realised how easily an opening
might be made between the boards for the convenience of a curious
eye anxious to penetrate the mystery of my seclusion.
And so it came about that the inner fence was put up.
This settled my position in the town. No more visits. All social
life was over.
It was meet. I was satisfied at last. I could now give my whole
mind to my one remaining duty. I lived only while on the Bench.
March Fifth, 1898.
There is a dream which comes to me often: a vision which I often
see.
It is that of two broken and irregular walls standing apart
against a background of roseate sky. Between these walls the
figures of a woman and child, turning about to go.
The bridge I never see, nor the face of the man who died for my
sin; but this I see always: the gaunt ruins of Spencer's Folly and
the figure of a woman leading away a little child.
That woman lives. I know now who she is. Her testimony was uttered
before me in court, and was not one to rouse my apprehensions. My
crime was unwitnessed by her, and for years she has been a
stranger to this town.
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