“‘You villain,’ he said, ‘you shall never stir from here alive.’
“He put his hand in his pocket—I knew he went armed—and so I shortened the stick I held, turning it, and struck him over the head with the heavy end.
“I did not try to kill the man, God is my witness of the fact. In my examination I stated the simple truth. A man who meant to do mischief with such a blow could scarcely have dealt it. He dropped down on the instant, and then a horror seized me. I flung away the stick and knelt down beside him, and felt his pulse, and laid his cheek to mine.
“He was dead, and I had killed him. I heard footsteps coming and fled, thinking every moment some one was pursuing me. I have felt the same thing ever since. To-night you, Miss Moffat, have realized the ideal—that is, the end of the story I had to tell,” he said in a low suppressed voice.
But Grace had something still to ask. “Mr. Hanlon,” she began, “what did you mean to do about Amos Scott?”
“I meant to let him stand his trial, and if they found him guilty—confess.”
“You are sure of that?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Then I think not, Mr. Hanlon,” she said. “As the temptation mastered you so far, it would have mastered you further; and we may all feel very thankful that through Mrs. Brady’s illness, you have been saved from so fearful an ordeal.”
The words might be cruel, but the tone in which they were uttered took all bitterness out of them. It conveyed less a reproach for his cowardly selfishness than a feeling of gratitude that Scott’s torture was well-nigh over, without it being necessary for Mr. Hanlon to criminate himself, or Nettie to denounce him. That she would have done so eventually, Grace could not doubt; but whether before or after the trial was another question. In any event it was well neither of them had been called upon to save Scott by such extreme measures.