Like many another wretched sinner in his dying hour, Leon Vinton was afraid of the vengeance of that God whom he had despised and defied all his wicked life.
All day the priests had been with him, praying, chanting, exhorting, and now the chilly, gloomy December day was fading to its close, and the long, dreary night hurried on—his last night upon the beautiful earth, through which he had walked as a destroying demon, scattering the fire-brand of ruin and remorse along his evil pathway.
"And now he feels, and yet shall know,
In realms where guilt shall end no gloom,
The perils of inflicted woe,
The anguish of the liar's doom!
He hears a voice none else may hear,
It bids his burning spirit pause;
It bids thee, murderer! appear
Where angels plead the victim's cause!"
Almost a year had passed since the tragic death of unhappy Sydney Lyle. Now outraged justice was about to avenge her death.
Conviction had followed swiftly upon the murderer's arrest and imprisonment.
When he had left poor Jennie Thorn, his betrayed and ruined victim, fainting upon the floor, with his demoniacal words ringing in her ears, he had little dreamed how and when he should meet her again.
Perhaps he thought she would pass silently from his life as other wronged ones had done, and never be seen or heard of again.
Not the slightest premonition of evil had come to tell him that the hatred he had stirred to life in her once loving heart would pursue him to the scaffold.
Yet so it was, and Jennie Thorn had stood up in the witness-box and given, under oath, the testimony that had cost him his life—had given it gladly, triumphantly, without one thrill of pity or regard for the man she had once loved and trusted.