I told him in the set phrases of my profession.
"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.