A look of despair was in the hot eyes of the prisoner; his hands clenched tightly.
"All his life," he said, as though speaking to himself, "all his life he did evil; and now that he is dead, the evil continues." He pointed to a bench at one side and added: "Will you sit down?" The two having seated themselves, he sank down weakly upon the edge of the cot. "I've been in poor shape since I came here," said he. "I can't sleep, and my nerves are gone."
"That's bad," said Bat Scanlon. "Nothing wears a man out like loss of sleep. Try to quit thinking of this affair; if you don't——"
"Quit thinking of it!" Young Burton laughed in a high pitched fashion that was very disagreeable to hear. "Quit it? You might as well ask me to stop the sun from coming up. I could do it just as easily."
There was a short silence; young Burton picked at the coverings of his bed with nervous fingers; and then he resumed:
"They say that any good thing brought into the world remains; that good can never be destroyed. I wonder if the same cannot be said of evil. He is dead; and yet what he did is living after him."
"That is probably one of the things that will oppress mankind forever. The persistence of evil is the thought behind many ancient religions. Indeed, one might include modern creeds as well," added Ashton-Kirk, "for Christianity teaches that evil clings from generation to generation, from age to age."
"I recall him first as a man whom I felt to be a stranger, but whom I was told to call father," said young Burton. "He did not live with us, only appealing now and then and making my mother very unhappy. Even then, small boy as I was, I hated him; and I know he detested me."
The young man was in that queerly relaxing state which causes men to tell their private griefs to even casual acquaintances.
"Very often," he went on, "we were rather happy, but that was always when my father was away. I remember a little white house on the outskirts where we lived unmolested for several years. My sister was at school; I was employed by an old wood engraver, one of the last of his kind; my mother earned a good living and we were quite comfortable and happy. My father had been away for so long that I had almost forgotten him; when a thought of him did come into my mind, it was as of an old trouble—and one that would never come again.