"She died," said the clergyman, in his low mild voice, "she died with her arms round this little girl, calm and peaceful as a child."
"Go," said the matron, gently sending Mary to the stairs, "go, my child, to-morrow you shall see her again."
The child went down, not to weep as they supposed, for there was a higher and more holy feeling than grief in her young heart. She had found her mother.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE TWO OLD MEN
The past, sometimes, comes dimly back,
Stealing like shadows on the brain;
We see the ruins on its track,
And feel the dead flowers bloom again.
Since the day of Chester's death, a great change had fallen upon the Mayor. He went to his office as usual, and performed its duties with habitual exactitude, but he never entered the Aldermen's tea-room again. When his political friends called upon him to accomplish any unfinished business, such as giving out contracts long before they were advertised by law—selling city property for a song to confederates, who were certain to allow a portion of the profits to flow back into greedy official pockets—or empowering some favorite to negotiate worthless real estate, and more worthless goods, for which the ever-enduring people were compelled to pay fabulous prices—for in all these things, directly or indirectly, he had been engaged—Farnham resolutely refused to enter into these transactions more.
He felt in the depths of his heart, that the demoralizing influences consequent upon those half-secret, half-audacious speculations had led him to the brink—nay, had actually plunged him into a great crime.
Again and again he had reconsidered the events of Chester's trial and death, following so closely on each other, with a hope of finding something that might remove the terrible responsibility from his conscience. But his stubborn and acute reason would not be convinced by the sophistry that had so often deceived the public. He had no power to blind his own conscience, and that told him, more and more loudly every hour, that his cruel acts had murdered a blameless fellow creature, directly almost as if the deed had been accomplished by a blow.
Yes, Joseph had uttered the right word—it was murder.